Show Ambitious Hikes Hiko dell Bell ready to expand earnings Bell Mining and Oil Company is small a total of five employees in eluding its two chief officers Craig Caldwell and Robert Bud BudH Covington But the Vernal based company has ambitious plans for what Caldwell and Covington believe is a record oil reserve discovery in southern Uintah County They inthe figure their percent interest in the called so-called Mile Eight Flat field could produce an eventual payoff of over 12 billion based on a million barrel reserve Caldwell predicted of revenue a month in February in the publication The Denver Stock Exchange after an an- announcing the disc discovery very In the same publication a New York stock broker figured the value of the oil find at about 28 a share Those figures would represent a quan quan- leap In Hiko Bells Bell's financial position position tion The company has gone through four down years since turning a profit of a lit lit- little littie tie tle over in 1977 The company has never paid a dividend to Its shareholders The stock trades in over over- the counter market Shareholders have done well however at least those who have been been with th the company since reorganization by Caldwell and Covington In 1964 That may be why the company has been able to keep going despite losses In 1964 the company's stock traded at atless atless less than one cent per share with 72 shareholders The number of shareholders has grown to over The stock traded at a share on the heels of the Mile Eight Flat announce announce- announcement announcement ment in January The stock has bounced bounced ed between 2 and 3 this year s said ld Covington He added Anyone who can put a pen pen- pencil cil to our reserves can see its ed Half of the 54 value per share is oU oil not Including the Mile Eight Flat find Much of the stocks stock's growth took place during the months leading up the the Mile Eight Flat announcement Using figures from the company's balance sheet Hiko Bell had an average stock price of 32 cents a share in September 1981 Since then the company issued near near- nearly ly 13 million new shares bringing the the total to eight million all outstanding outstanding- Figuring just 32 cents a share the issue would have given the company of new capital to work with about 75 per per- percent cent of the combined losses from 1978 through 1981 After nine months of 1981 Hiko Bell had a healthy ratio of 94 percent for stockholders debt equity As Covington puts it Were growing Hiko Bell has informed stockholders that it plans to raise 45 million of capital for well drilling and im- im improvements improvements through the end of next year Starting production In the Mile Eight Flat field presents an example of the stock and trade for a small production company such as Hike Bell The operative term is farm out or selling a percentage of lease interest to a com pany that can afford to drill In this case Pacific Transmission of Denver a division of Natural Gas Corp of California sold 50 percent interest interest to Hiko Bell Hiko Bell in turn sold 75 per per- percent cent of Jacobs Oil and Gas Co of Grand Junction The reason Hiko Bell didn't have the money to drill with the performance performance mance deadline set by the US Geological Survey fast approaching said Covington He believes there are barrels of recoverable oil for each of around well sites planned for the acre por- por portion portion tion of the lease shared by Hiko Bell and Jacobs Oil and Gas Covington said he found much skepticism skepticism about the million barrel prediction But he recalls telling people that he wouldn't reputation as a geologist by making a prediction that he wasn't sure of of The Mile Eight Flat unit is south of Ft Duchesne He He said the geology of the area in- in indicates indicates a field eight to 12 miles wide ex- ex extending extending tending for 35 miles to the west starting at Ouray |