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Gold/Mining/Energy : Strictly: Drilling and oil-field services -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ItsAllCyclical who wrote (60072)	2/10/2000 10:21:00 AM
From: Think4Yourself	Respond to of 95453

Crude climbing again ($28.97 delayed). Perhaps folks are thinking refiners can't hold off purchases much longer? Anyone have a plausible explanation why crude would be rising so strongly when OPEC has signalled fairly clearly that they will ease slightly?

To: ItsAllCyclical who wrote (60072)	2/10/2000 12:10:00 PM
From: SliderOnTheBlack	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 95453

Bingo ! JIm L - P & UCL - great choices ! Bull's post brought home sentiment here - <<Small and medium-sized independent producers are just now getting back on their feet and repairing their balance sheets, noted Robert Ransone, managing director of Wellspring Partners, a merger and acquisition advisory firm based in Dallas. "Cash flows are better, but people are saying no to new buying or drilling opportunities, and focusing instead on their existing internal projects first, such as workovers and recompletions." Many banks and private capital providers are reluctant to initiate new deals until they finish "cleaning up" their old ones that went sour, noted Art Smith, president of John S. Herold Inc. "If you look at where some of the high-yield bonds are trading, there are several companies still in trouble. We could see some more defaults this year." >> Big is better and clean balance sheets & those on the cost cutting mode are best... I said look at the charts on those yesterday. UCL - huge gas find. Super Independants, select majors & Integrateds will be the "risk vs. reward" plays . Bull that article reflected what has been preached in every board meeting and especially by the Super Majors & Lg Independants - the Street is hammering ANYONE who takes on huge cap ex spending commitments. They want & demand cost cutting and earnings. The financing doesn't exist for what "some" companies need to flourish here imo. We've got lean & mean large caps now at near 5 year lows like UCL here - amazing. They dumped their refining anchor a while back - now they are a mega E&P and firing on all cylinders with the same valaution & discount to their highs as the small & mid caps. When you look at the institutional money flows and factor risk; why not UCL vs. the PXD UPR mindset ? Same upside appreciation potential, whole different financial structure - and none of the risk...which one do you want to margin & hold here ? Again; those who think that THIS cycle will be anything like the 97 BOOM are wrong. It is allready different. The once in a generation, if not - once in a lifetime huge cap ex spending on the Offshore Rig Construction Boom will NOT exist in BOOM 2000. Early cycle workover, fluids, completion, pipe & the nuts & bolts plays are the no-brainers. NOI back at $12-$13 was THE play on Rig Construction - IIR as well - both "picks & shovels" plays for THIS boom vs. the FLC type of Offshore Rig Construction - financing mania. I think the FGH VRC type of plays will suffer dramatically in THIS Boom as compared to the prior one. Sure both have laggard, value play potential - but will not see their lofty former status, or anything close imo. Different mindset by Institutions buying here; ie" 14% Institutional ownership in FGH: someone explain that folks ? It is because Institutuions KNOW that THIS Boom IS different - period. There IS a different mindset on Cap Ex spending by the majors - this time; they are still in the cost cutting mode - not a historic cap ex spending mode. People need to realize how this will impact THIS boom as opposed to the LAST boom. Lean & mean - LARGE E&P's will have massive earnings upside visibility here - strong balance sheets & good earnings upside are the key. I have trimmed back my PXD UPR heavy debt co's to a much smaller position. APA BR NBL EOG have better balance sheets - XTO is still an earnings, cash flow & production grower - I'm vastly overweighted to XTO - using this for my mid-sm cap E&P play.Nibbling in the P & UCL world as well... - these stocks/companies make sense to margin here and are the smart way to play NG as well imo. UCL at near 5 year low, EOG with huge stock buyback commitment, NBL near 5 year low - these are the marginable plays, not stocks that are up well off their lows. Also, we've been talking about how we will exit this heating season much better supplywise and will be comparing to weak demand from last year for the duration of the heating season & that the contraseasonal peak demand of summer looks to be very bullish for NG stocks ? - who missed that ? - thats all we've been talking about... FLC DO the only drillers looking real, real cheap here - Watching RIG NBR for any further weakness - both core , must own co's. Still lots of bargains here - Royal Dutch Shell just got a Strong Buy endorsement. I'm watching Big Oil here as the key to where we go. Lots of time & opportunity prior to the OPEC meeting... I would stay nimble & use margin for leveraged bounce play/trades selectively. There will not be a lack of buying opps.All we need is for Saudi, Ven, Mex to pre-announce at their meeting which is 2 weeks prior to the Vienna OPEC meeting; that they are leaning toward, or entertaining easing production. Maybe they will be successfull in floating price bands and softening the landing - or, maybe the Street will Spin Doctor & we get a violent reaction. Bottomline - tons & tons of laggards; small caps are still retracing here - ie: TMR RRC and many others... no one will miss anything by being smart with margin here. The small caps in some cases are retracing to $10 Oil & $1.75 Gas levels - amazing... MeThinks there was a lot more selling going on here than was admitted to. It sure got awfull quiet during the heat of battle... People, do the math - there were tons of stocks down 10% in 2 days - that's 20-30% of capital wiped out on max margin.... ? Then lots of heads popping up out of the fox holes after the smoke cleared today claiming they weren't scared (VBG)... Margin use it with respect, or it will use you....