Is Now the Time to Buy US Silica? (CRR, EMES, EXP, HCLP, SLCA) In the past I've written about how frac sand providers could be the best way for long-term investors to profit from America's historic energy bonanza.
Recently I explained how US Silica Holdings' (NYSE: SLCA ) latest earnings confirmed the company's dominance in its industry and deserved a spot on every investors radar. Indeed, Wall Street seems to have agreed as investors took notice of the company's success and have turned it into one of the hottest stocks of the last year. In fact, the entire proppant (materials used to prop open cracks in shale) industry, of which frac sand is the dominant variety, has been on a tear. US Silica's competitors Hi-Crush Partners (NYSE: HCLP ) and Emerge Energy Services (NYSE: EMES ) have done as well or better. Only CARBO Ceramics (NYSE: CRR ) , which manufactures more expensive and more advanced ceramic proppants, and Eagle Materials (NYSE: EXP ) haven't at least doubled in price. SLCA Total Return Price data by YCharts. Oil Field Services Investment and Industry Change. Brandon Dobell, partner and group head, global services at William Blair & Co.
LLC, specializes in the energy, real estate services and technology industries. Dobell was previously group head, global services research at Credit Suisse. He also worked in equity research at Bank of America Securities. Dobell has won two awards in the Financial Times/StarMine "World's Top Analysts" listing, including the No. 2 earnings estimator rank for 2008 in diversified consumer services, and the No. 1 earnings estimator rank for 2009 in real estate management and development.
Dobell has a master's degree in business administration (finance) from the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business, and bachelor's degrees in history and political science from the University of California, San Diego. Spraberry/Wolfcamp shale oil in Texas has over 50 billion recoverable barrels making it the second largest in the world. Pioneer Natural Resources ($29 billion company and largest player in the Spraberry/Wolfcamp formation) has detailed information on this oil formation.
Spraberry/Wolfcamp is often categorized with the Permian oil basin. It is now producing 500,000 bpd and is projected to reach 2 million bpd by 2023 and then increase to 2.5 million bpd in 2033. EIA survey of world shale oil and gas included an analysis of US shale oil. The Permian basin estimate included the Wolfpack/Spraberry had a total of 9.7 billion estimated to be recoverable. The 50 billion barrel estimate would double the estimated recoverable shale oil from the US. Coal: the cleanest energy source there is? At a research-scale combustion unit at Ohio State University, engineers are testing a clean coal technology that harnesses the energy of coal chemically, without burning it.
Here, doctoral student Elena Chung (left) and master's student Samuel Ayham (right) display chunks of coal along with pulverized coal (bottle, center) and the iron oxide beads (bottle, right) that enable the chemical reaction.Jo McCulty / Ohio State University At Ohio Stateâs Clean Coal Research Laboratory, Liang-Shih Fan (left), professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, examines a sub-pilot scale combustion unit with Dawei Wang (right), a research associate and team leader in the lab.Jo McCulty / Ohio State University Researchers have discovered a stunning new process that takes the energy from coal without burning it -- and removes virtually all of the pollution.
The process removes 99 percent of the pollution from coal, which some scientists link to global warming. The Really, Really Big Picture. Submitted by Chris Martenson of Peak Prosperity,
Oil By Rail. There's been a lot of buzz lately about the rebound in the US oil industry, and how the US is turning into "Saudi America.
" One of our favorite charts that show just what a transformative year it has been comes from the American Association Of Railroads (.pdf). It shows US + Canadian average weekly rail carloads petroleum and petroleum products. ITG Energy Survey. Article: ITG Energy Survey - don.skipton - Gmail. Article: In One Chart, See Why 2012 Was A Historic Year For The US Oil Comeback - don.skipton - Gmail. GOLDMAN On The Shale Revolution. We are seeing calls that, thanks to shale drilling, the U.S. is poised to become the world leader in oil production, leading some to begin invoking "Saudi America.
" Today, Goldman Sachs analyst Kamakshya Trivedi, weighed in on the global macro implications of this phenomenon in a note titled: The shale revolution is changing the global energy landscape. The note actually goes further, talking about how the entire economic landscape could potentially change. The main impact, they write, is that oil prices will no longer prove a brake on growth:
Brent Favored Over WTI by U.S. for First Time as Prices Diverge. Dec. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Even the U.S.
Energy Department no longer deems America’s benchmark oil grade as the best guide to global prices, as rising production swells national stockpiles. The Energy Information Administration in Washington dispensed with West Texas Intermediate for its price forecasts in its Annual Energy Outlook 2013 released yesterday, adopting North Sea Brent crude instead. Iraq Oil Boom. Citi's commodities team believes Iraqi oil production is set to explode in the coming years, causing prices to turn downward.
An American Oil Find That Holds More Oil Than All of OPEC. <br/><a href=" US News</a> | <a href=" Business News</a> Copy Drillers in Utah and Colorado are poking into a massive shale deposit trying to find a way to unlock oil reserves that are so vast they would swamp OPEC.
A recent report by the U.S. Saudi Bakken. Iraq oil output to double by 2020: IEA - Oct. 9. An Iraqi worker adjusts a control valve at the Daura oil refinery in Baghdad, Iraq. LONDON (CNNMoney) Production could reach 6.1 million barrels per day by 2020, up from the current output of around 3 million barrels a day, and top more than 8 million barrels by 2035, the Paris-based agency said in a special edition of its World Energy Outlook. Iraq's ability to increase exports will have a major impact on world markets. Such rapid growth would generate $200 billion a year of revenue for Iraq and transform the country's economy, the IEA said. U.S. to become biggest oil producer and energy independent - Nov. 12.
Oil and gas boom puts US on track for energy independence LONDON (CNNMoney) The recent resurgence in oil and gas production, and efforts to make the transport sector more efficient, are radically reshaping the nation's energy market, reported Paris-based IEA in its World Energy Outlook. North America would become a net exporter of oil around 2030, the global organization said Monday. "The United States, which currently imports around 20% of its total energy needs, becomes all but self sufficient in net terms -- a dramatic reversal of the trend seen in most other energy importing countries," the IEA stated. The U.S. is experiencing an oil boom, in large part thanks to high world prices and new technologies, including hydraulic fracking, that have made the extraction of oil and gas from shale rock commercially viable. From 2008 to 2011, U.S. crude oil production jumped 14%, according to the U.S.
Lower oil and gas prices are going to become the new normal. Happy days AP Photo/Reed Saxon. Big Oil Isn't as Profitable as Everyone Thinks. Americans spend a lot of money on oil -- about $632 billion a year. A lot of that money goes to paying the costs of getting the dinosaur juice out of the ground in the first place, including exploring for potential reserves, drilling test wells, drilling production wells, pumping the stuff, and transporting it.
More money goes into the costs of refining oil into gasoline, and getting it to the gas stations, which take their own little slice of the pie after we fork over our $4 a gallon at the pump. And yet, despite all those costs, big, integrated oil producers like ExxonMobil (XOM) still manage to report eye-popping profits at the end of each year -- $41 billion for Exxon last year, $25.7 billion for BP (BP) -- even the smaller ConocoPhillips (COP) managed to tuck away $12.4 billion for a rainy day. Keep in mind that these companies all operate globally, so their profits aren't necessarily limited by how much Americans spend on oil. Are These Guys Ripping Us Off? A big shift in oil will bring price relief. Drilling in Colorado AP Photo/Ed Andrieski An astonishing decade-long surge of oil prices is reversing, according to a top energy watchdog.
The reason is moderate global economic growth and a spike in oil supply from Iraq, Libya and North America. US Oil Shale Future is Drilling Faster and Cheaper. I do not think that North Dakota Bakken oil production will plateau at 600,000 to 700,000 barrels per day for an annualized average. U.S. poised for boom in crude oil exports. Some of the world’s biggest oil companies and traders are poised to export substantial amounts of crude from the United States for the first time in decades, as booming output there promises to reshape global energy markets. Will Truckers Ditch Diesel for Natural Gas?
Natural Gas Trucks - Natural Gas Engines. Natural gas: Difference Engine: Awash in the stuff. Why America Can Make or Break A New Global Gas World. Forget North Dakota — There's A New Shale Oil Boom State In Town.