- The reverberations are still rattling Colorado's oil industry two months after the deadly explosion at a home near an Anadarko Petroleum (APC +0.8%) well, driving down driller shares and raising fears of a regulatory backlash.
- The April 17 blast was followed a month later by a second explosion, and have revived calls to restrict drilling near populated areas within Colorado’s Niobrara shale formation, the fourth-most productive shale basin in the U.S.
- Since May 2, when authorities publicly linked APC to the home explosion, shares have lost ~15% and other drillers active in Colorado have been hurt, with Extraction Oil & Gas (XOG +1.5%) and Noble Energy (NBL +0.8%) both falling ~8%.
- Investors are nervous about the potential regulatory fallout, says Stifel analyst Michael Scialla, who expects "at the very least... more regulation around [underground] flow lines... [Regulators] don’t even know where half the flow lines are in the state."
- Baird's Ethan Bellamy believes “the practicalities of the state’s budgetary reliance on oil and gas revenue likely [will] prevent any overly draconian changes."
- Now read: InsiderInsights.com Daily Round Up 5/17/17: APC, LSXMA, LSXMK, IFF, PRGX, DATA
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