EXCO Resources to Begin Dallas-Harrisburg Nonstop Service Next Week

Never hoping to be entertained, I've listened to a lot of conference calls over many years but, yesterday afternoon, EXCO CEO, Doug Miller had me banging on my mouse pad during the Q & A. Now don't take the above headline too seriously but Doug did reply, "..I’d say this, permitting issues continue to be a problem. We’re working with them. I think we’re sending a whole crew of lawyers and Steve and everything up there" "I don’t know if that’s good or bad but they’re going up there to have some discussions." (Harrisburg, PA, to meet with various agencies to try to expedite the permitting process)

Or, I could have used a few other headlines like:

Aubrey Just Left the Building
Doug updated the leasing situation in the Marcellus and noted, "We've done some small acquisitions, mostly leasing. There’s quite a lot of acreage around up in Appalachia right now. I think Aubrey kind of left town and all of sudden, everything that was being held up just came flying in. I’d say we’re probably looking at pushing a million acres of potential up there. (Doug referring, of course, to Chesapeake CEO, Aubrey McClendon)

50 Texans Come a Knockin'
Describing the flood of applications being filed with the various permitting agencies in PA, Doug said, "They never had 50 Texans up there with 25 permits waiting in line. It’s a problem."

Slow and Slower
Doug, on the pace of development "Joe, I think slow is the underlying word.", "..we’re doing a lot of work and a lot of negotiatin' and a lot of schmoozing with both the EPA group and the water disposal people. It ain't an easy task. This is not East Texas/North Louisiana."
President, Steve Smith, "But it is doable, it’s just time consuming."
Doug, "It’s going to take some time and I’d say slow is the underlying theme."
Steve, "Drilling permits have been put on hold pretty much in Pennsylvania as I understand it. And again, it’s not anything sinister, it’s just – I think the body up there is just trying to get their arms around what’s going on. And so we’re – it's slow, they’re very slow coming through with the drilling and the water permits."

Take Me Home,....Country Roads
Doug, on giving some kind of idea of the production ramp up in the Marcellus, "I think what we’re doing right now with these first two (horizontals), those will be completed hopefully in September, October." "Pennsylvania is going to be slightly slower as we talked about. I think we’re moving the deep rig that we have down into West Virginia maybe after these two wells are drilled. It’s slightly easier to get permits, both water and drilling permits, so underline slow. And, I’m not going to give you any production rates right now because we’d love to have four or five rigs running in Pennsylvania the whole year. We do have some coming, but let's delay that."
Steve, "The permitting is actually a bit of a problem right now and that’s why we are drilling two horizontal Marcellus wells in West Virginia, that’s our next two wells will be – our next two Marcellus horizontals will be in West Virginia."

Okay, okay, maybe it's not a mouse pad banger for you but, it's hard out here bein' a blogger, especially a Marcellus blogger trying to find a little humor in the play. Thanks Doug. Can't wait till Q3!

Definitely worth a listen @ http://ir.excoresources.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=195412&p=irol-eventDetails&EventId=1904622