Whiting Petroleum's Results Were Merely 'Lackluster,' Says Iberia's Eli Kantor

• Whiting Petroleum Corp WLL shares are down 49 percent year-to-date, declining steadily after hitting a high of $40.95 on March 18.
• Iberia Capital Partners’ Eli Kantor mentioned that the company’s 3Q results were lackluster, with capex and production missing expectations.

Whiting Petroleum reported soft results for 3Q, although EPS was higher than expected. The company reported adjusted EPS at ($0.17), better than the consensus expectation of ($0.25) and Iberia's estimate of ($0.39). The EPS beat is likely to have been driven by marginally higher realizations, lower operating costs, and a lower tax rate, analyst Eli Kantor said.

Production of 14.8 mmboe was marginally lower than Iberia's estimate of 15.0 mmboe and the Street’s expectation of 14.9 mmboe. Whiting Petroleum reported 3Q capex of $403mm, above the $324mm estimated by Iberia and the Street’s $314. “Spending in each sub-segment was higher than expected,” Kantor wrote.

In the company’s asset sale program, proceeds of $400mm have been raised year-to-date. Kantor expects the 2015 asset sale program to miss the full-year guidance of $500mm-$1bn. Although the company did not provide any details of potential sales of the Williston midstream assets or North Ward Estes, these assets could garner $730-$800mm, the analyst added.

In its press release, Whiting Petroleum stated that its Williston 30-day rates had risen 44 percent sequentially to 1,100 boe/d.

In the report Iberia Capital Partners noted, “We would caution that we've yet to see the IP rate improvement materialize in the state reported production data. According to DrillingInfo, max month rates across WLL's overall Williston position are flat y/y.”