| | | Hi Rick,
I'm sticking with my energy positions and averaging down.
With the mergers really happening in numbers now, there is solid logic behind the view that mergers and acquisitions en mass are a bottoming action.
There may well be a laggard, but his is a good sign.
When the E&P's merge, they gain scale and can reduce headcount from duplication of employees.
A reduced overhead and economies in scale could well allow a more OPEC glut control and still be profitable.
Shale producers up to their neck in debt have pumped oil at maximum volume whether it made sense or not.
This looks very similar to the old Micron buys up memory makers and suddenly there were three memory makers Micron,SK Hynix , and Samsung.
Guess what, they all miraculously started making big money.
I'll grant you there are more supers ajjor oil companies out there than 3, but Shell, BP have removed themselves from Active drilling nd are aiming for lowering their carbon footprint as they shift to renewables.
Since Europe has a bad case of loving the renewables vs natural gas/LNG, I suspect ENI and Total are not far behind BP and Shell in leaving gas and oil exploration to the shale players and Saudi's.
The good news to me is the XOM's and CVX's are the low cost producers after the Saudi's.
Opec's emerging market members all have higher costs and even higher needed prices.
My bet is by this time next year, XOM and CVX will be up 25%-50%,and sporting excellent dividends - even if cut in half!
P.S. I talking my book here. <smile>
Bob |
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