Straight from the press release: Swift Energy Company (NYSE: SFY) announced today that due to the failure of a third party operated gathering line earlier this week, Swift Energy has been required to halt dry natural gas sales from its Fasken field in Webb County, TX. Gross natural gas sales volumes in the Fasken field were averaging approximately 40 million gross cubic feet per day before the failure occurred. Continued well productivity above initial expectations in this area led the Company to recently raise its expected well recovery estimates to 10 billion cubic feet per well. While the Company expects pipeline services to resume in the near future, the estimation of a service restoration date by the pipeline operator requires it to complete a full review of the damages and determine a specific repair timeline.
This incident will result in third quarter production being slightly below the low end of previous guidance of 2.56 – 2.76 million barrels of oil equivalent ("MMBoe"). While this recent pipeline failure brings third quarter production below guidance, the quarter was also negatively impacted by previously announced shut-ins along the Louisiana coast during Tropical Storm Lee, delays in the commissioning of dedicated transportation and processing through a newly constructed third party pipeline handling natural gas production in McMullen County, TX and periodic transportation and processing curtailments under the Company's existing interruptible natural gas agreements, also in McMullen County.
Finally, the Company has obtained the additional planned rig for its South Texas area to drill Olmos and Eagle Ford horizontal wells. However, another rig currently under contract recently experienced a major mechanical problem and is expected to be out of service for much of the rest of the year. This will impact the Company's drilling schedule until planned activity can be resumed or the rig is replaced. The impact on fourth quarter production of this rig's absence combined with the pipeline service outage in Webb County cannot be fully determined at this time. The Company currently expects to have additional information regarding these third party related constraints when it next reports financial and operational results on November 3, 2011.