Let me expound a little bit on lease values. While lease offers accross the board have gone down both in number, and in value, there are reasons for optimism. This is a very tepid time for many smaller oil and gas companies who are adopting a wait and see approach. These are the companies who are small enough to start and stop projects fairly quickly. If things go wrong in the short term for these companies, they might go out of business, and because of their short term approach, lease offers will be less competitive from this group. From Bigger more established oil and gas companies like Newfield, Petrohawk, Anadarko, XTO, Cheasapeake, E.O.G., etc… Lease offers will remain competitive because of the long term approach these companies have. Fresh off of periods full of windfall profits, many of these larger and intermediate sized companies continue to look for promising properties to add to their holdings and will pay what they have to for properties they want.
