Bill Barrett confident about debt after refinancing, growth in oil

By Sahara Marte

New York, June 13 - Bill Barrett Corp. has pushed out its debt maturities and the next scheduled repayment, in July 16, should present little difficult to the company because of an expected increase in revenues from its oil operations, Robert W. Howard, chief financial officer and treasurer, said at EnerCom oil and gas conference.

The company has completed two $400 million senior note offerings in the past eight months; one in September that funded $280 million in property acquisitions and one in March which was used to refinance $147 million in convertible notes. The company has $900 million in available borrowing base on its revolver, based on 2011 reserves.

The next significant debt maturity is July 15, 2016, when $250 million in 9 7/8% bonds are due.

Howard told the conference that Bill Barrett plans to maximize cash flow and maintain financial strength by expanding its oil sector.

Bill Barrett has expanded sale volumes of oil to 27% from 6% and aims to reach 40% by 2014. It intends to use 60% of its 2012 capital budget of $800 million to $900 million for oil exploration, said Howard.

"We do have very much flexibility through all of our projects areas to allocate capital based on our capital allocation, desired commodity, commodity prices, operating efficiencies" and other issues, added Howard.

Bill Barrett is a Denver-based company that explores for and develops natural gas and oil.

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