ThinkstockThe boom in natural gas production resulting from horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (fracking) has come at a price. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence that the chemical stew of fluids used…
High prices have finally contributed to curing high prices in the world’s crude oil market. The gloomy economic forecasts for the second half of 2011 have combined with $120/barrel prices for Brent…
As the markets swoon today from Friday night’s downgrade of US debt, Standard & Poor’s is making other changes to its debt ratings. One sector that is unchanged is oil and gas,…
As an industry, the oil field services sector is doing very well. Its P/E ratio for the trailing twelve months is 36 and its price/book ratio is 6.0. With a few exceptions,…
Brazil’s Petroleo Brasileiro SA (NYSE: PBR), commonly called Petrobras, has approved a plan it announced last September to spend $224.7 billion developing an estimated 5 billion barrels of reserves. The spending, which…
courtesy of BP plcBad weather in North America and Australia, political unrest in the Middle East and North Africa, and a slow return to drilling in the US Gulf of Mexico have…
Oil field services firm Halliburton Co. (NYSE: HAL) reported EPS of $0.61 for its first quarter, more than double its profit in the same period a year ago. Revenue reached $5.3 billion,…
Next week may be short because of a holiday, but it is going to be a very busy week for earnings. We have tried to narrow the field down to the very…
Jon OggThese are some of the top analyst upgrades, downgrades, and initiations seen from Wall Street research calls this Wednesday morning. Advanced Energy Industries, Inc. (NASDAQ: AEIS) Raised to Buy and $19…
The land rush to acquire and develop shale gas deposits remains as competitive as ever. But the way that the gas is extracted threatens to put a crimp in development of shale…
Ever since 2005, when its offer to buy Unocal was withdrawn following cries of political rage, Cnooc Ltd. (NYSE: CEO) and other Chinese oil companies kept a low profile on acquisitions, particularly…
Earnings season is well under way now and we wanted to offer previews for the biggest impact stocks which have earnings on Thursday and Friday. The remaining most important earnings we are…
Earnings season is upon us and this week will mark the beginning of the flood of earnings reports. The most important earnings we are tracking will be from Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL),…
With crude oil prices hovering around $90/barrel, exploration and production companies are expected to increase their spending in 2011 by about 11%, for a total of about $490 billion. Oil field services…
Insider selling by millionaire and billionaire corporate insiders is already rising, but it is about to go through the roof. Forget the politics and forget the morale left behind as a result,…
