oh, hell yes....bring Chuck back. The rosetta deal was a bust in many ways. Paid twice as much and acquired entitled workers being paid 25% more than the rest of us. Best bet now is to layoff 80% of the Rosetta people. The rest of us could absorb their jobs
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Thank you for clarifying. Yes I agree with you Anonymous 188766. We have 650,000 net acres in the DJ Basin and cannot figure out how to make money. From what I understand the DJ Business Unit loses money. In the same basin Anadarko considers the DJ it's cash cow and they are making all kinds of money. And thus Anadarko has avoided layoffs for now. Yes Chuck Davidson does deserve a lot of the blame. Sort of like when Obama took over... things were such a mess... same for Dave Stover. Although Stover was part of the management team and was deeply involved in decision making. So I don't really think adding the Rosetta assets makes a lot of sense... especially adding almost $2 Billion in additional debt. Noble is not executing whatsoever. What is going to change?
I wasn't implying that Stover did a good thing by acquiring Rosetta 188895. I agree with you, the Rosetta purchase was clearly a catastrophic mistake. I meant "accountable" when I used the word "credit". You have a good point though, "credit" could imply an endorsement and that was not my intention. Would you agree to my substituting the word "blame" for "credit"? In any case, my main point was that Chuck shares a good portion of the "blame" for where Noble is today.
Its all on Chuck, Mr Stover is his guy from their Arco-Vastar days. Their DJ and Marcellus plans were the typical Unconventional Play Underwear Gnome Plan 1. Borrow cheap 2. Pattern drill 3. Demonstrate accelerating production growth. It differs from Gnomes's plan because it has a step 2 but lacks any promise of profit. (see Rosetta). That game collapsed. Its the old, old story of boom. bs, and bust. Chuck got paid and he is gone. ARCO had a lay-off every year from 1992 until BP bought them cheap (in 1999?). Unfortunately, its Mr Stover's ARCO game play book now. Best wishes to the people of integrity still at Noble. To the Wiley Coyote "Super Geniuses" at Noble LOOK UP NOW that is a rock LOOK DOWN that is a canyon
Credit for the Rosetta deal? Are you kidding me? Like a noose around our neck? $2 billion in Noble stock and an additional $1.8 billion in added long term debt... Credit?! Most analysts have determined that they paid twice the amount Rosetta was worth. Unless there is more to this than we know I would not give anyone CREDIT for this acquisition. Noble will have to sell something... most likely their DJ assets. Noble's long term debt of $6.2 billion equates to over $300 million per year in interest payments. These notes are all at variable interest rates. Meaning as interest rates rise Noble's interest payments will rise. We will be drowning in interest expense to keep our lines of credit from defaulting. Furthermore Noble may not be so bloated if we had some success at what we were doing. Results in the DJ have been a disaster when compared to our peers. Anadarko is kicking our ASS! But then Anadarko hires experienced professionals. Noble... well you know.
I'm not sure how the duties were divided, but Dave Stover was President and COO from 2009 until he took over as President and CEO. Chuck was certainly around and witnessed the great bloat happened with Finance, IT, Legal, HR, and other groups and when really bad contracts were signed for Marcellus and international new ventures.
Sadly, although I liked Chuck's personal style, he bears a major share of responsibility for where Noble is today. He was in charge when nearly all the bad choices were made. He left just in time before it hit the fan. Sure, Stover gets credit for the Rosetta deal and the layoffs, but Chuck has to share responsibility for all the crummy decisions before that and for molding the organization into it's current dysfunctional state. Perhaps if he'd spent more time supervising what his direct reports were up to things would be different now.