no secret i have announced several times in past months on si purchases of nr as it was declining below 8
i don't have time to post much right now on nr, but i can return later with more info. nr has three biz units, and two of them appear to me to be without much competition. they do drilling waste disposal , and i don't know nr's market share (but i think it's about 85% or more). nr has a mat business that sells and leases composite mats. mats are linked together to create roads where there are no roads (swamps, muck, environmentally sensitive areas, parts of canada, soft dirt, etc.) so heavy equipment can be trucked in to drilling sites. mats are also deployed around unstable drilling sites themselves to create a place for vehicles, equipment, and people to get around. on sept. 11 nr shipped some mats to the pentagon for helicopter landing pad creation. the mats have a lot of uses. the new, rapid deployment army has been evaluating these mats for use in its essential equipment (until 9-11 i expected a mat decision by the army would take a long time). nr has a big marketshare in the mat biz, but i just have not looked lately at how much it is. frankly i don't know any other company in the mat biz. it is sort of specialized stuff. nr also has a water based drilling fluids business. the product is deepdrill, and nr has been developing and testing this for several years. nr has some good customers for deepdrill, and i understand from the conference calls each quarter that the number of drill sites and the number of customers and customer inquires increases. it has been over a quarter since i checked the fluids biz at nr, but it has been the fastest growing part of nr. the lastest epa general permit should be getting nr a lot of deepdrill testing and hopefully follow-on biz. raymond james put out a strong buy rating on nr about a month or so ago. if some things go right, nr could capture some nice biz. i cannot predict the timing on this one, but it has been a good performer. |
