Steven Ward

Canadian Oil Sands Trust Is Now the Single Most Attractive Oil Acquisition Target

Politically and economically speaking, Canada has a great incentive to encourage China to develop her oil sand assets rather than buy a share of Syncrude.

Exxon Mobil: Further into Oil Sands

Cotu of Syncrude has stated they have planted 10 million new trees plus and are still planting.
Ninety percent of the water used by Syncrude is returned to the Athabasca River and it is clean.
Oil sands has two problems: the tailings ponds and the price of natural gas.
Technology sooner or later will clean the tailings but the real economic problem is not the price of oil but the future price of natural gas. future as in 10 to 20 years out.
The economic difference for the oil sands process is the cheaper btu's of the natural gas needed to process as compared to the current price of oil, the end product.
Now we have dirt cheap natural gas but that can change in a heartbeat with the Obama Admin putting stiff enviro laws on shale gas drilling.
The nat gas price can kill the oil sands not a bunch of enviro lawyers.

Saudis Drop WTI Oil Contract - But Why?

This move permitsthe Saudis to participate in the Singapore and Dubai markets willy nilly without scrutiny.

The Saudis want to make money on oil speculation as well as physical product.

Solar Stocks Break Down Yet Again

Most solar stocks willprobably tank over the next 6 months. The raw materialpolysilica is down in price showing no robust demand.

Spain capped government funds this year on solar implementation and Germany is next. Merkel has decided that the German tax payer has had enough of the "experiment" in green.
Spain and Germany are the two biggest markets for solar and that's now kaput.

Canadian Oil Sands: Why a Larger Syncrude Holding Makes Sense

COS paid Talisman 400 plus million for Talisman's 1.25 percent interest in Syncrude so 3 billion might be a slight bargain for COS.

Doubt if a foreign buyer will appear due to the lack of pipeline capacity flowing to Vancouver.

Nexen and Suncor will probably do a deal with each other on Buzzard in the North Sea so probably no selling their Syncrude assets.
Unless Nexen wants the money for buying Buzzard from Suncor.

Imperial is committed to Kearle and other heavy oil expansion projects so no interest there.

That leaves Murphy Oil. Murphy wants to expand a refinery to an additional 175 to 200 thousand barrels per day.
So that leaves only COS and Murphy as buyers because Suncor and Nexen are like Imperial, already have bitumen projects on the boards.
Two buyers may be enough to heat up the bidding. Maybe just maybe.
Otherwise COS would be in the driver's seat.
One to two bidders that'sit, I think.

Canadian Royalty Trusts – Will Dividends Rise or Fall?

You buy the Canroy's simply based on the cheapnessof their assets and the RLI. The dividend status is completely unknown as well as the payout yield.

If Canroys like PWE stop the dividend entirely they will have tremendous cash flow to apply towards debt reduction and the purchase of new assets. The market will reward these companies over the next few years with price appreciation grreater than any current yield or future yield.

For a contrarian view see my SA article titled, "Canadian Royalty Trusts Will Never Return to Their Former Glory." I think it is still timely. I'm not impressed with yield, particularly when PWE can nearly pay off all her debt by eliminating the dividend for about 18 months.

For the record I'm long Crescent Point which recently converted to a corporation.

Proposed Baltimore Nuclear Raising Budget Concerns

Ferdinand, why are soldiers in combat synonymous with nuc power? We basically do not use oil for power generation in this country if you are equating nucs with oil consumption and sending soldiers and Marines into combat.

Toward an Economic Model for Gas-to-Liquid Fuels?

The US has to become transportation fuel independent. The money kept inside the country will currently deny the OPEC Cartel of about
$250 to $300 billion a year.

But the Obama Admin. does not seem to agree, rather focusing on green generating power instead.
Obama views all of natural gas as a transition fuel. With no transition dollars to help it along.
We are at the point where we shoulsd spit on a spark plug if it will work.

Raser Reports Steady Progress for Geothermal Projects

On the geo thermal issue what is being ignored is the specter of earthquakes on the re-injection of water or other liquids.
This sounds like goofball concern but the reality is that Bootlerock in California and a geo thermal site in the French Alps suffer from earthquakes. The French operation had to be shut down.

In California, they are use to earthquakes, no big deal there. But what of the concerns in the rest of the country where earthquakes are rare to non-existent.
If the locations are remote enough there should be no problem.
The thing about earthquakes: even the anti- green people will be in the streets protesting.
Yipe!!!

Fadel Gheit: Oil Prices to Remain Inflated but Don't Pass on Gas

I don't think it matters one whit whether Gheit is wrong or right on the financial manipulation theory. Fact is: he stated it will keep prices high for quite some time.

Demand or manipulation, oil prices will remain high.
So invest accordingly.

Is Exxon Betting on $100 Oil?

XOM along with Total has been excellent in ROI and ROE. XOM is losing production, pumping less each quarter. clearly, XOM views Africa as long term and I agree with the other blogger who suggests long term here is 10 to 15 years out.

It isn't bad having a Chinese partner who can legally do things with the host government you can't. Or a proven African partner like Total whose French government keeps a special and semi secret intelligence organization whose sole purpose is the French corporate colonization of former African colonies.
Yeah, XOM is looking at the long term, alright. We just don't know who her partners are going to be yet.

ATP Oil & Gas: Production Should Triple in Next 9 Months

The slightest hint of debt on a balance sheet spooks the market these days. So you are right that ATP is being punished unfairly.

However, what is the cash costs of their production from the new fields?

Northwest Natural Gas: Worth Considering

Generally speaking, MLP's don't cycle between their highs and lows like a NWN does. This pattern has also shown itself in the 80's and 90's with gas utilities and gas producing companies, less so today though.
A good general rule of thumb is that when a stock, royalty trust, or an MLP has a pre-tax capital gain from your original purchase price, equal to or greater than 5 years of income stream sell it.

Is ConocoPhillips a Potential Multi-Bagger?

With what CVX and XOM and even BP has comming on -line I simply do not see COP's advantage here. COP needs gas to go up alot and soon with her Burlington purchase.
CVX and XOM have huge supplies of gas comming on stream over the next 5 years and signed contracts to boot.
BP cost cutting, discarding of silly "green" projects and current and future deep water discoveries coupled with the dividend is better choice than COP.

Out of (Natural) Gas

I don't see NG going to 7 to 8 bucks without a government boost of some sort. Without sizeable carbon credits for NG the product will have to wait for NG conversion to liquid transportation fuel and conversion to LNG to export to Europe. And who knows howlong that is going to take.