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Gold/Mining/Energy : Big Dog's Boom Boom Room -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tomas who wrote (21763)	4/20/2003 2:15:19 PM
From: Tomas	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 206131

Oil patch profits seen soaring The Globe and Mail, April 18 Surging crude prices will push oil patch profits sky-high this quarter, analysts say, as they brace for an onslaught of Canadian earnings next week. The Canadian reporting season heats up next week, with 26 per cent of the S&P/TSX composite index releasing results. Oil and gas biggies EnCana Corp., Shell Canada Ltd., Imperial Oil Ltd. and Suncor Energy Inc. are among those opening the books on their latest quarters and profit among these companies is forecast to triple or quadruple from year-earlier levels. “Not every company will post record profits, but many will,” Wilf Gobert, vice-chairman of Peters & Co. in Calgary, told globeandmail.com of the energy sector. “The previous record quarter was in the first quarter of 2001.” The stellar results will stem from oil price, which hit multi-year highs in recent months. To compare: in the first quarter of 2003, U.S. oil traded on the Nymex market averaged $33.80 (U.S.) a barrel, up $5 compared with the 2001 first-quarter average of $28.70 a barrel. On Thursday, world oil prices rose nearly 5 per cent to jump back above $30 ahead of an emergency OPEC meeting next week that is expected to tighten global crude supply. U.S. crude futures in New York added $1.37 to $30.55, the highest price for more than two weeks, while Brent crude oil in London gained 86 cents to $25.85 per barrel. Two other factors, rebounding profit from the downstream division and foreign exchange gains, will boost the oil company’s bottom line in the first quarter. “Canadian production volumes do not fluctuate tremendously from quarter to quarter so the story will be all these other factors,” Mr. Gobert said. According to a consensus estimate provided by tracking firm Thomson/First Call, EnCana is expected to post operating earnings of $1.52 (Canadian) a share, up sharply from 36 cents a share. Thomson/First Call expects Shell Canada’s profit to rise to $1.08 a share from 33 cents a share, Imperial Oil’s earnings are expected to grow to $1.53 a share compared with 28 cents a share and profit at Suncor Energy to rise to 68 cents a share from 19 cents a share. Out of the 500 Standard & Poor’s companies slated to report their financial results, industry analysts polled by Boston-based research firm Thomson/First Call expect that profit grew 10.2 per cent from last year’s terrible first quarter. If you take out the impact of the big energy companies, profit is expected to have grown just 3.7 per cent. “That means two-thirds of earnings growth is coming from the energy sector,” said Thomson Financial/First Call’s Ken Perkins.