Liquidity

Rex Energy Corp. spent the first quarter buying time and looking ahead for what management hopes will be a more stable 2017, executing balance sheet initiatives to boost liquidity and save more money, while steadily drilling acreage in Ohio and Pennsylvania to hold it with production.

Rex Energy Corp. detailed a difficult fourth quarter late Tuesday in its year-end financial results, offering little information about financial initiatives to generate more liquidity and postponing the usual conference call.

Liquidity stress in the oil and gas industry reached its highest-ever level in February, continuing a trend that began in late 2014, Moody’s Investors Service said in a note published Tuesday.

On the same day that Linn Energy LLC announced it was searching for strategic partnerships to bolster its balance sheet, Standard & Poor’s Ratings Service (S&P) downgraded the credit ratings for Linn and Berry Petroleum Co. — which Linn purchased in 2013 — over liquidity concerns.

The global oil and natural gas industry’s plight isn’t expected to improve in the new year as the strain of low commodity prices is expected to continue dragging down budgets and limiting financial flexibility in 2016, according to a report released Monday by Moody’s Investors Services.

Fresh from completing a semi-annual borrowing base redetermination, and with an eye on its liquidity, Linn Energy LLC reported a slight decline in total production for the third quarter and indicated that it could spend slightly less on capital expenditures (capex) in 2016.

Penn Virginia Corp. (PVA) is opening its Eagle Ford Shale oil window wider with the acquisition of 40,600 gross acres (19,000 net) in Gonzales and Lavaca counties, TX, for $401 million from Magnum Hunter Resources Corp. (MHR), which has set its sights, in part, on the Pearsall Shale.

Continental Resources Inc., now the king of the Bakken Shale, has expanded its empire to an estimated 1.1 million net acres after completing a deal to buy 119,218 million acres for $649.3 million in cash. The Samson Resources Co. properties in North Dakota, primarily in Williams and Divide counties, have current production estimated at about 6,500 boe/d, 82% weighted to crude oil.

NFR Energy LLC has closed two private deals worth a combined $736 million to acquire assets in the Anadarko Basin and Eagle Ford Shale. The company also announced that First Reserve Corp. has increased its interest in the parent company, NFR Holdings LLC, to 99.7% and NFR is to be renamed Sabine Oil & Gas LLC.