Building a quality asset base

One of the world’s largest independents, Burlington Resources, operates mainly in North America and mainly in gas. Its aim, executive vice-president and chief financial officer, Steve Shapiro, tells Anne Feltus, is not only to achieve robust production growth, but also sector-leading returns

AN OFFICIAL of Burlington Resources remarked that his company was experiencing a 'growth spurt' during a recent conference call to analysts. That spurt reflects a trend of steady growth for the Houston-based enterprise. One of the world's largest oil and gas independents, it has quadrupled its production since going public in 1988 and reported third-quarter 2003 profits that were triple those for the same period a year earlier. Burlington's return on capital employed was an impressive 9% in 2002, despite average realised prices for natural gas that dropped by almost $1/'000 cubic feet (cf) during the year and are estimated at 17% return on capital employed in the first 11 months of 2003. For