PDC Energy (PDCE) New Permit Boosts Colorado Drilling Inventory

PDC Energy PDCE, the Denver, CO-based independent upstream operator, recently declared that the regulatory watchdog — Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC) — has ratified PDCE’s Broe Oil & Gas Development Plan (“OGDP”) permit, which includes 30 wells located in rural Weld County in Colorado.

Initiated by Great Western Petroleum, LLC, the Broe OGDP, which was acquired by PDC Energy in May 2022 for $543 million, signifies PDCE’s first OGDP approval on the Great Western acreage. Along with the previously approved Kenosha OGDP, the company further added 99 new wells to its inventory in June, and in a short period of time, it will have more than 675 permits and drilled and uncompleted wells.

The Senior Vice President of Operations at PDC Energy, David Lillo, thanked his team at PDCE, along with leadership and staff at the COGCC, and mentioned that Broe is the second PDC OGDP to obtain a go-ahead this month and the third approval within the last 12 months. He further stated that the company’s integration of the Great Western assets continues to go well as suggested by the approval. Operationally, the new permits add to the company’s established inventory of projects in the Denver-Julesburg Basin, giving the company “good visibility well into 2024 at current activity levels,” he ended.

Per the company, it is already looking forward to getting approval for its Guanella Comprehensive Area Plan and other future OGDPs.

PDC Energy, Inc. is engaged in the exploration, development and production of natural gas, crude oil and natural gas liquids. The firm is focused on the Wattenberg Field in Colorado and the Delaware Basin in Texas. PDCE’s Wattenberg operations are centered around the Niobrara and Codell formations, while the Delaware Basin development primarily targets the Wolfcamp zones.

PDC Energy currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). Some other top-ranked stocks from the energy space that warrant a look include Range Resources RRC, SilverBow Resources SBOW and Crescent Point Energy CPG, each sporting a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Range’s 2022 earnings is projected at $4.89 per share, up about 142% from the projected year-ago earnings of $2.02.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for RRC’s 2022 earnings has been revised upward by about 4% over the past 60 days from $4.70 to $4.80 per share.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Silverbow’s 2022 earnings is pegged at $12.69 per share, up 97.6% from the projected year-ago earnings of $6.42.

SBOW beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings in all the trailing four quarters, the average being 20.3%.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Crescent’s 2022 earnings per share has been revised upward by about 87.8% over the past 60 days from $1.56 to $2.93.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for CPG’s 2022 earnings is projected at $2.93 per share, up by 306.9% from the projected year-ago earnings of 72 cents.

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