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Derivative Financial Instruments
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Jun. 30, 2012
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| Derivative Financial Instruments |
5. Derivative Financial Instruments Our market risk exposure relates primarily to commodity prices and interest rates. From time to time, we use various derivative instruments to manage our exposure to commodity price risk from sales of oil and natural gas and interest rate risk from floating interest rates on our revolving bank credit facility. We do not enter into derivative instruments for speculative trading purposes. Our derivative instruments currently consist of crude oil swap and option contracts. We are exposed to credit loss in the event of nonperformance by the counterparties (Natixis; ING Capital Markets, LLC-EDP; the Toronto Dominion Bank; and Wells Fargo Bank, N.A.); however, we do not currently anticipate any of our counterparties being unable to fulfill their contractual obligations. We account for derivative contracts in accordance with GAAP, which requires each derivative to be recorded on the balance sheet as an asset or a liability at its fair value. Changes in a derivative’s fair value are required to be recognized currently in earnings unless specific hedge accounting criteria are met at the time we enter into a derivative contract. We have elected not to designate our commodity derivatives as hedging instruments. For additional information about fair value measurements, refer to Note 7. Commodity Derivatives. We have entered into commodity option contracts to manage a portion of our exposure to commodity price risk from sales of oil through December 2014. While these contracts are intended to reduce the effects of price volatility, they may also limit future income from favorable price movements. During the six months ended June 30, 2012 and 2011, our derivative contracts consisted entirely of crude oil contracts. The zero cost collars are priced off the West Texas Intermediate crude oil price quoted on the New York Mercantile Exchange, known as NYMEX, and the swaps are priced off the Brent crude oil price quoted on the IntercontinentalExchange, known as ICE.
As of June 30, 2012, our open commodity derivatives were as follows:
The following balance sheet line items included amounts related to the estimated fair value of our derivative contracts as indicated in the following table (in thousands):
Changes in the fair value of our derivative contracts are recognized currently in earnings and were as follows (in thousands):
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