Mmarrkk

Natural Gas: Short Term Bear, Long Term Bull

Fitz: Exactly who is Big Oil that is holding down NG? I just don't see that because all of the "popular villains" in Big Oil (Exxon, ConocoPhillips, Chevron, Shell, etc) also have huge natural gas positions. In fact, if you look at their balance sheets and reserves ledgers, most have close to parity NG vs crude oil, or getting close to it. And revenues from nat gas are pretty substantial as well. And on an "after-op cost" basis, nat gas is infinitely easier to market than crude oil. Costs way less to get out of the ground, don't have the refinery costs, etc. So I'm not sure I plug in with the Big Oil is holding Nat Gas back theory. Now Big Coal...that's a whole different story. Hency Aubrey and CHK's fight against coal-fired power generation in OK.

Takeover Climate in Oil and Gas

Have you ever listened to a conference call where the so-called expert analysts give the CEO's huge amounts of grief about acquisitions? COP was villified by these analysts for their acquisition of Burlington, a move that now appears to be a huge winner. And every quarter thereafter, one of the "smart" young guns asks a question with a clear tone of "You aren't thinking about another big acquisition, are you??" as if to say we've got our finger on the trigger, baby, so just try one!!

Unfortunately, that will really slow down the M&A market overall for the big guys. And they may be the only ones with the money to do these sized deals. But you are spot on...these are great companies and with their recent declines in price, selling at attractive values.