Ahead of its fourth quarter report, U.S. shale company Continental Resources said it expects its net production to grow by at least 15 percent.

Total U.S. oil production is around 10 million barrels per day, putting the country on the same footing as Saudi Arabia. Continental, which focuses in part on the lucrative shale basins in North Dakota and Oklahoma, said its production averaged 242,637 barrels of oil equivalent per day, up 12 percent from the previous year. About 60 percent of its output is oil.

"For 2019, the company currently expects production to grow 15 percent to 20 percent year over year with a capital budget of $2.5 billion to $2.8 billion, while generating significant free cash flow comparable to 2018 projections," the company said in a statement ahead of its fourth quarter earnings report.

For 2018, the company said it plans to average six rigs in the Bakken shale basin in North Dakota. According to the latest rig count in North Dakota, that would represent about 10 percent of the state total. In December, the last full month for which the state has data, North Dakota, the No. 2 oil producer behind Texas, averaged 1.18 million bpd and 95 percent of that came from the Bakken shale.

In Oklahoma, Continental said it plans to average 15 drilling rigs for the year, also about 10 percent of the total in the state. Drawing on its SCOOP and STACK shale basins, Oklahoma is the No. 5 oil producer in the country.

Continental said it planned to spend about $2.3 billion on its operations this year with the goal of ending 2018 with a production rate between 305,000 and 315,000 barrels of oil equivalent.

The company said it would be cash neutral so long as the price for West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark for the price of oil, was in the low- to mid-$40 per barrel range. WTI was trading at around $61 per barrel early Friday and Continental said a $5 per barrel change from the cash-neutral range would impact cash flow by at least $250 million.

Continental releases its fourth quarter report after the market closes on Wednesday. The company hinted late last year that fourth quarter production could be at least 14 percent higher than the third quarter.

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Washington (UPI) Feb 15, 2018
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