Crude Oil
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The Arckaringa Basin Could Be the Largest Shale Oil Find of All Time
Over the past few days, I have released information on what could be the largest shale oil find ever recorded.
It's located in an area of Australia called the Arckaringa Basin and contains as much as 233 billion barrels (or more) of recoverable shale oil.
That's more than all of the estimated oil in Iran, Iraq, Canada, or Venezuela. And it's just 30 billion barrels shy of the estimated reserves in all of Saudi Arabia.
The discovery at the Arckaringa basin is so big it's already prompting some observers to begin talking about energy independence for Australia, much in the same way Americans did after similar discoveries in the Bakken, Marcellus, Eagle Ford, and Utica basins.
And there is one small company that controls what is shaping up to be the biggest worldwide oil project to hit in decades.
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After Nexen's Buyout, How Should You Play Canadian Oil Sands Stocks?
The purchase of Calgary-based energy company Nexen Inc. (NYSE: NXY) for $15.1 billion by China's CNOOC Ltd. (NYSE ADR: CEO) is the largest overseas purchase ever by the world's second-biggest economic power.
But it will likely be the last time China, or any other country, takes a big chunk out of Canada's oil sands - the world's third-largest proven reserves of crude oil.
That's because after Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper approved the Nexen deal in December, he banned further foreign firms' investment in Canada's oil sands and will allow them only under "exceptional" circumstances.
"The government's concern and discomfort for some time has been that very quickly, a series of large-scale controlling transactions by foreign state-owned companies could rapidly transform this [oil sands] industry from one that is essentially a free market to one that is effectively under control of a foreign government," Harper said in December.
"Foreign state control of oil sands development has reached the point at which further such foreign state control would not be of net benefit to Canada," he added.
But foreign government control isn't the real problem facing Canadian oil sands companies.
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Two Reasons to Expect Greater Volatility in Oil Prices
A combination of rising demand and tension in the Middle East means oil prices will continue to climb.
How this plays out in the short term will have a primary impact on the profitability of oil sector investments. One conclusion is already clear. This will once again be a volatile market.
And this time, volatility will be point upward.
That is not to say that the rise will be continuous or without occasional pull backs. In fact, yesterday we witnessed two contrary signals attesting to an ongoing collision of forces.
Both of these are exogenous to market factors, a very important observation to recognize moving forward.
The direct relationship between supply and demand would oblige a rise in oil prices for the simple reason that more end use is moving back into focus.
Both the International Energy Agency (IEA) and OPEC have raised demands projections for the near term. Those levels are now approaching less than 3 million barrels per day of global supply.
Now we are not going to have a crude shortage anytime soon, although there may be some regional constrictions on the horizon. Ample supplies are available for quick pumping to meet rising demand. Nonetheless, there will be a greater use of unconventional production (tight, shale, heavy, oil sands).
And that means the oil coming on market will be more expensive.
Knee-jerk reactions to global events will again pull on demand sentiment. That, in turn, will spike the volatility. Yet this is likely to be more subdued on the down side than at any time in the last year.
Pundits have also introduced the specter of another (or "double dip") recession and fanning the flames of that fear would prompt the price of oil to move south.
The likelihood of a recession is rapidly dissipating and the prospects of these fear tactics are declining along with that reality. Reversals, therefore, while still inevitable, will be short in nature so long as the current underlying dynamics remain. Those are now pointing up.
I have a series of personal indicators used to determine what should be happening with oil prices. There are 10 of them, designed to estimate the actual composition, strength, and direction of pricing movements. For the past month, six of them have been pointing positive. As of Friday (these are calculated at the end of each week), seven are now moving north.
The upward pressure is building, reflecting the overall higher revisions in forecasted demand by IEA and OPEC. Yet we are once again reminded that the oil market hardly operates in a vacuum.
And that leads me back to those two outside signals we received yesterday.
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Will the New U.S. Shale Boom Kill Oil Prices?
These days everybody wants to extol the virtues of rising U.S. domestic crude oil production.
From decades of increasing reliance on foreign providers, some hardly sympathetic to American interests, the new prospect of having significant unconventional oil reserves here at home has been a major development.
The assumption advanced says that domestic sources will be cheaper. As a result, this should comprise a positive boon to consumers of oil products but a problem for producers and refiners. In short, the mantra among some commentators is to proclaim the end of the oil market as an attractive option for investors.
As with most such simplistic observations, however, it turns out not to be true.
A number of these "analysts" are actually talking down the prospects of oil prices because they have already shorted the commodity and will benefit their own investments if they can continue the downward push.
Well, oil prices are now going up, with both West Texas Intermediate (WTI) in New York and Brent in London at more than three-month highs.
In addition, the spread between WTI and Brent is narrowing.
The narrowing of that spread is occurring while both benchmarks are rising in price. The mantra of the pricing doomsayers would expect it to be going in the other direction.
There are two broad categories of reasons why matters are not happening as the doomsayers had expected (aside from the obvious - they misunderstood the dynamics from the beginning).
And once you understand both, you'll be in position to profit as prices continue to rise.
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How to Play the Resurgence in Oilfield Services
Whenever a recovery begins in crude oil prices and natural gas, it always begins upstream, usually very far upstream. As I have noted before, this is signaled in the oilfield services (OFS) segment of the energy sector.
My tracking index for OFS companies currently follows 63 providers of early field development and preparation. These include everything from initial geological surveys, through seismic, analysis, test and exploratory wells, to pad preparation, drilling, well completion, maintenance, support, and workover rigs.
Before the improvement is recorded by the operators - the firms actually producing the oil and gas - we should expect a spike to take place in OFS. These are the providers who will experience a push before anything is extractable. Normally, indications of a recovery occur in OFS first.
It appears the recovery is happening again this time. All 63 stocks on my tracking list are up for the week (by an average of 4.5%) and 60 are up for the month (with an average rise of over 14% for all 63).
As we go forward, there's one strategy you should use to play this recovery...
