Fitch Affirms Apache's 'A/F1' Debt Ratings.CHICAGO -- Fitch Ratings Fitch Ratings An international rating agency for financial institutions, insurance companies, and corporate, sovereign, and municipal debt. Fitch Ratings has headquarters in New York and London and is wholly owned by FIMALAC of Paris. has affirmed the ratings of Apache Corporation (Apache) following the company's announcement that it has acquired certain Permian Basin assets from Anadarko Petroleum Corporation Anadarko Petroleum Corporation (NYSE: APC) is one of the world’s largest independent oil and gas exploration and production companies, with 2.37 billion barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) of proved reserves and a production of 190 million BOE in 2004. Ranked No. (Anadarko) for $1 billion. Fitch affirms Apache's debt as follows: --Long-term Issuer default rating (IDR IDR In currencies, this is the abbreviation for the Indonesian Rupiah. Notes: The currency market, also known as the Foreign Exchange market, is the largest financial market in the world, with a daily average volume of over US $1 trillion. ) at 'A'; --Senior unsecured debt at 'A'; --Preferred stock at 'A-'; --Commercial paper at 'F1'; The Rating Outlook is Stable. Under the terms of the transaction, Apache will book net reserves of 70.1 million barrels of oil equivalent, 57 million of which are oil and the remainder of which is natural gas. The transaction enhances Apache's position in the Permian basin, one of the firm's core producing regions, by adding 28 long-lived fields with reserves-to-production (R/P R/P Role Playing R/P Research Platform ) ratios averaging 15.9 years. Apache's cost per acquired barrel of oil equivalent The barrel of oil equivalent (bboe, sometimes BOE) is a unit of energy based on the approximate energy released by burning one barrel of crude oil. The US Internal Revenue Service defines it as equal to 5.8 × 106 BTU [1]. 5. (boe) of $14.27 is reasonable in the current high priced environment and in line with the company's strategy and Fitch's expectations. Apache intends to fund the acquisition with debt. The announcement today follows Apache's previous acquisitions of BP's Gulf of Mexico Noun 1. Gulf of Mexico - an arm of the Atlantic to the south of the United States and to the east of Mexico Golfo de Mexico Atlantic, Atlantic Ocean - the 2nd largest ocean; separates North and South America on the west from Europe and Africa on the east assets for $821 million, Pioneer Natural Resources' (Pioneer) assets in Argentina for $703 million, and certain of Amerada Hess Corporation's (Hess) Permian Basin assets for $239 million. Apache has a proven track record of integrating and growing acquired assets, particularly older fields from the industry's super-majors. In 2007 Apache expects its latest acquisition to produce approximately 9,000 barrels of oil and 19 million cubic feet of gas per day. Apache is a large independent oil company engaged in the exploration and development of natural gas and crude oil. The company's core operations are conducted primarily in five regions of the globe - the lower 48 states (including shallow water Gulf of Mexico), Canada, Egypt, Australia and the North Sea. Proved reserves at the end of 2005 totaled 2.12 billion boe, roughly balanced between oil and gas. Fitch's rating definitions and the terms of use Terms of Use are rules set up by the owner of an intellectual property or service to govern how they may be legally used. In many cases, terms of service are used as a contractual agreement between a company and users of a service they provide. of such ratings are available on the agency's public site, www.fitchratings.com. Published ratings, criteria and methodologies are available from this site, at all times. Fitch's code of conduct, confidentiality, conflicts of interest, affiliate firewall, compliance and other relevant policies and procedures Policies and Procedures are a set of documents that describe an organization's policies for operation and the procedures necessary to fulfill the policies. They are often initiated because of some external requirement, such as environmental compliance or other governmental are also available from the 'Code of Conduct' section of this site. |
|
||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion