Continental Resources Inc
We are an independent crude oil and natural gas company with properties in
the North, South and East regions of the United States. The North region consists
of properties north of Kansas and west of the Mississippi River and includes
North Dakota Bakken, Montana Bakken, and the Red River units. The South region
includes all properties south of Nebraska and west of the Mississippi River
including various plays in the SCOOP (South Central Oklahoma Oil Province),
STACK (Sooner Trend Anadarko Canadian Kingfisher), and Arkoma Woodford areas
of Oklahoma. Historically, our properties in Blaine, Dewey and Custer counties
of Oklahoma that produced from the Woodford formation were referred to as the
Northwest Cana district, while properties often underlying the same surface
acreage in those counties that produced from the Meramec and Osage formations
were referred to as the STACK district. Such properties were historically combined
by us and referred to as "Northwest Cana/STACK". Effective December
31, 2016, we now refer to such properties simply as "STACK". The East
region is comprised of undeveloped leasehold acreage east of the Mississippi
River with no current drilling or production operations.
We were originally formed in 1967 to explore for, develop and produce crude
oil and natural gas properties. Through the late 1980s, our activities and growth
remained focused primarily in Oklahoma. In the late 1980s, we expanded our activity
into the North region. The North region comprised approximately 61% of our crude
oil and natural gas production and approximately 69% of our crude oil and natural
gas revenues for the year ended December 31, 2016. Approximately 50% of our
estimated proved reserves as of December 31, 2016 are located in the North region.
In recent years, we have significantly expanded our activity in our South region
with our discovery of the SCOOP play and our increased activity in the STACK
play. Our South region comprised approximately 39% of our crude oil and natural
gas production, 31% of our crude oil and natural gas revenues, and 50% of our
estimated proved reserves as of and for the year ended December 31, 2016.
We focus our exploration activities in large new or developing crude oil and
liquids-rich natural gas plays that provide us the opportunity to acquire undeveloped
acreage positions for future drilling operations. We have been successful in
targeting large repeatable resource plays where three dimensional seismic, horizontal
drilling, geosteering technologies, advanced completion technologies (e.g.,
fracture stimulation) and enhanced recovery technologies allow us to develop
and produce crude oil and natural gas reserves from unconventional formations.
As a result of these efforts, we have grown substantially through the drill
bit.
Despite ongoing volatility and uncertainty in commodity prices, our business
strategy continues to be focused on increasing shareholder value by finding
and developing crude oil and natural gas reserves at costs that provide attractive
rates of return. The principal elements of this strategy include:
Growing and sustaining a premier portfolio of assets focused on high rate-of-return
projects. We hold a portfolio of leasehold acreage, drilling opportunities and
uncompleted wells in certain premier U.S. resource plays with varying exposure
to crude oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids. We pursue opportunities
to develop our existing properties as well as explore for new resource plays
where significant reserves may be economically developed. Our capital programs
are designed to allocate investments to projects that provide opportunities
to work down our large inventory of uncompleted wells, convert our undeveloped
acreage to acreage held by production, and improve hydrocarbon recoveries and
rates of return on capital employed. While our operations have historically
focused on the exploration and development of crude oil, we also allocate significant
capital to liquids-rich natural gas areas that provide attractive rates of return.
Optimizing cash flows through operating efficiencies, cost reductions, and enhanced
completions. We continue to manage through the current commodity price environment
by focusing on improving operating efficiencies and reducing costs. Our key
operating areas are characterized by large acreage positions in select unconventional
resource plays with multiple stacked geologic formations that provide repeatable
drilling opportunities and resource potential. We operate a significant portion
of our wells and leasehold acreage and believe the concentration of our operated
assets allows us to leverage our technical expertise and manage the development
of our properties to achieve cost reductions through operating efficiencies
and economies of scale.