Noble Energy, Inc. has announced its capital budget and guidance for 2008.
Noble Energy's capital investment program is set at approximately $1.6 billion with 74 percent designated for development activities, 24 percent on exploration efforts and the remainder for corporate expenditures and other items. Development spending will focus on the company's extensive low-risk project inventory in the Rocky Mountain region, existing deepwater Gulf of Mexico discoveries and the expansion of producing assets in the North Sea and China. The exploration budget will focus on significant resource potential in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico, West Africa, Israel and Suriname.
"The goal of this year's investment program is to build upon the solid foundation we have established, focusing on the areas that have yielded our outstanding successes to date," said Charles D. Davidson, Noble Energy's Chairman, President and CEO. "A substantial amount of capital is allocated to exploration, which is almost entirely directed to high-impact prospects. Our disciplined investment approach is expected to once again generate free cash flow that should provide us flexibility to take advantage of incremental opportunities during the year."
The capital program should enable Noble Energy to deliver sales volumes of 205 to 216 thousand barrels of oil equivalent per day (MBoepd) in 2008. Using the midpoint of the estimate, this represents a six percent increase over 2007, or seven percent after adjusting for the sale of Argentina assets. Volumes in the United States are anticipated to increase five percent largely driven by active drilling programs in the Wattenberg, Piceance and Niobrara areas in the Rocky Mountain region. International volumes are expected to be up seven percent primarily due to a full year of natural gas sales from the Alba field to the LNG facility in Equatorial Guinea.
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