5.  Derivative Financial Instruments

Our market risk exposure relates primarily to commodity prices and, from time to time, we use various derivative instruments to manage our exposure to this commodity price risk from sales of our oil and natural gas.  All of the derivative counterparties are also lenders or affiliates of lenders participating in our revolving bank credit facility.  We are exposed to credit loss in the event of nonperformance by the derivative counterparties; however, we currently anticipate that each of our derivative counterparties will be able to fulfill their contractual obligations.  Additional collateral is not required by us due to the derivative counterparties’ collateral rights as lenders, and we do not require collateral from our derivative counterparties.

We have elected not to designate our commodity derivative contracts as hedging instruments; therefore, all changes in the fair value of derivative contracts were recognized currently in earnings during the periods presented.  The cash flows of all of our commodity derivative contracts are included in Net cash provided by operating activities on the Condensed Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows.

For information about fair value measurements, refer to Note 3.

Commodity Derivatives

As of September 30, 2017, we had open crude oil and natural gas derivative contracts for a portion of our anticipated future production for the remainder of 2017.  These contracts were entered into during the first quarter of 2017.  For crude oil, we entered into two types of contracts.  The first type is a swap contract, where we either receive or pay depending on whether the crude oil price is below or above the contract price.   The second type is known as “two-way collar” consisting of a purchased put option and a sold call option.  These two-way collars provide price risk protection if commodity prices fall below certain levels, but may limit incremental income from favorable price movements above certain limits.  The crude oil contracts are based on West Texas Intermediate (“WTI”) crude oil prices as quoted off the New York Mercantile Exchange (“NYMEX”).  For natural gas, we entered into “two-way collar” contracts.  The natural gas contracts are based on Henry Hub natural gas prices as quoted off the NYMEX.  The strike prices of both the oil and natural gas two-way collar contracts were set so that the contracts were premium neutral (“costless”), which means no net premiums were paid to or received from a counterparty.  Settlement occurs monthly using the per day notional quantity.  As of December 31, 2016, we did not have any open derivative contracts.    

As of September 30, 2017, our open commodity derivative contracts were as follows:

Our open and closed (not settled) commodity derivative contracts were recorded within the line Prepaid expenses and other assets on the Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheets summarized in the following table (in thousands):

Changes in the fair value and settlements of our commodity derivative contracts were as follows (in thousands):

Cash receipts, net, on commodity derivative contract settlements are included within Net cash provided by (used in) operating activities on the Condensed Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows and were as follows (in thousands):

Offsetting Commodity Derivatives

All our commodity derivative contracts permit netting of derivative gains and losses upon settlement.  In general, the terms of the contracts provide for offsetting of amounts payable or receivable between us and the counterparty, at the election of both parties, for transactions that occur on the same date and in the same commodity.  If an event of default were to occur causing an acceleration of payment under our revolving bank credit facility, that event may also trigger an acceleration of settlement of our derivative instruments.  If we were required to settle all of our open derivative contracts, we would be able to net payments and receipts per counterparty pursuant to the derivative contracts.  Although our derivative contracts allow for netting, which would allow for recording assets and liabilities per counterparty on a net basis, we have historically accounted for our derivative contracts on a gross basis per contract as either an asset or liability.