Northern Oil hanging on as low prices punish the Bakken

Minnesota's only significant player in the North Dakota oil fields is hanging on, despite having to devalue its oil reserves by $1.2 billion.

Wayzata-based Northern Oil and Gas Inc. is a non-operator that invests in oil and gas leases, but doesn't drill wells itself. Instead, other oil companies with stakes in the same fields run the drilling rigs and Northern Oil decides whether to invest based on its share of leases, entitling it to a slice of output.

Chief Executive Mike Reger told analysts last week that Northern's strategy is working even as oil prices have fallen from more than $100 per barrel to around $30 per barrel since mid-2014. The strategy is to buy leases in prime parts of the Williston Basin, to invest only in economic drilling efforts and to use price hedges that can reduce the price risk when oil is pumped and sold.

"The beauty of our business model is we are going to elect to participate in wells that get drilled in the best spots and meet our economic returns," Reger said. "If not, then we won't."

Northern's adjusted earnings fell to 78 cents per share in 2015, from 95 cents in 2014. But fourth-quarter adjusted earnings were up, beating analysts' expectations. Those results are based on participating in 292 wells last year — the equivalent of 18.6 net wells. The adjusted earnings don't factor in the bookkeeping devaluation of Northern's underground oil and gas reserves to reflect current low prices.

Like other North Dakota operations, Northern has cut its investment plans for 2016, and expects to participate in just 10 net wells. That could lead to flat or declining production. But investors seemed content for now. Shares closed at $5 Friday, up from about $3 at the start of the week.

DAVID SHAFFER

The market's value has increased 150 percent since March 2009. It may seem fairly obvious that stocks do better when economic growth improves, but with all the angst over policy officials, oil prices and China, perhaps it is a good reminder for stock investors not to lose focus on what really matters … the U.S. economy.

"Real GDP growth has been slowing since the first quarter of 2015 and the stock market has mostly struggled," Paulsen wrote. "However, given the tremendous drop in commodity prices (similar to a tax cut) and the equally impressive recent drop in bond yields, the likelihood of a bounce in U.S. economic growth is good.

"Most parts of the U.S. economy are much healthier today [jobs, consumer finances, housing market and bank lending] compared to the only other times in this recovery when economy growth slowed below a 2 percent pace. Should economic reports improve, the economy and the stock market could be in for a few more quarters of accelerating economic growth."

Neal St. Anthony

Minnesota lost about one farm a day last year, continuing a gradual regional and national trend that has seen the number of farms decline slightly and the size of farms increase gradually.

Using USDA definitions, 25.9 million acres of Minnesota qualifies as "land in farms," which includes land used for crops, livestock and ranches.

North Dakota has 30,000 farms, down about 1 percent from 2014, and the average size is 1,307 acres. South Dakota is similar, with 31,300 farms, averaging 1,383 acres.

Wisconsin saw almost no change, losing 100 of its 69,000 farms last year, and the average size was virtually unchanged at 209 acres.

And Iowa lost 500 of its 88,000 farms in 2014, with the average size just below 350 acres.

Nationally, Texas has the most farms, with 242,000, followed by Missouri, Iowa, Oklahoma and California. Wyoming and Montana are the top two states for average farm size, largely because of ranches. The report was based on surveys of producers in mid-2015. It also classifies farms in six categories, depending on the value of their annual sales. In 2015, about 82,500 farms nationally had sales of more than $1,000,000, up slightly from the previous year.