Most companies are gearing up to report second-quarter results, but Magnum Hunter Resources (NYSE: MHR) is running a little behind this year after it was forced to let its auditor go. The good news is that less than a month after filing its annual report, the oil and gas company is presenting investors with its first-quarter numbers. Let's take a quick look.
Financial highlights
Revenue came in at $98.0 million, which is up 76% over the first quarter of last year. Meanwhile, adjusted EBITDAX for the quarter is up 63% year over year to a total of $55.4 million. Unfortunately, the company still turned in a net loss of $0.06 per share, which is slightly worse than last year's $0.02 per share loss. However, as you'll see, none of these numbers are really worth getting worked up over.
The huge year-over-year jump in revenue was mainly driven by the company's acquisitions as well as its focus on drilling liquids-rich acreage. Magnum Hunter's focus on drilling in the Bakken as well as in the wet gas portion of the Marcellus has been a big factor in its ability to increase revenue. However, growth did come at a higher cost. Part of the reason why the company had issues with its previous auditors was due to its understaffed accounting department. The company has had to add a number of accounting personnel as well as processional services, which added to its costs and cut into profits.
Production and operational highlights
Because Magnum Hunter is an early stage exploration company, the most important metric right now is its ability to grow oil and gas production. Overall, production edged up by 9% year over year to 13,769 barrels of oil equivalent per day. However, the company lost 3,120 barrels of oil equivalent production per day in the quarter due to production shut-ins.
Magnum Hunter produced significantly more natural gas liquids than it originally anticipated and didn't have the pipeline capacity to handle the volume. If the company could have processed those volumes, its production for the first quarter would have been up by 34% year over year. The good news is that the problem was resolved in May when MarkWest's (NYSE: MWE) new Mobley processing facility fully came on line.
The access to the Mobley complex is an important infrastructure asset for Magnum Hunter as it provides 320 million cubic feet equivalent per day of processing capacity, with another 200 million cubic feet equivalent per day of capacity expected to come online by the end of the year. That processing capacity, as we saw in the first quarter, is really critical to Magnum Hunter's ability to sell what it produces. As shown in the slide below, MarkWest is building critical infrastructure in the region which will help prevent future production shut-ins.
Source: MarkWest investor presentation
Foolish bottom line
While there is a lot more to this story, the bottom line is that Magnum Hunter's revenue and production are both increasing. The predominant finding in the quarter is the company produced more natural gas liquids than anticipated and was really held back by the lack of takeaway capacity. That's a pretty good problem to have, especially when considering the issues troubling the company have now been solved.
