Disruptive Technologies dans le secteur de l'energie -- 1

par Boutin, samedi 18 février 2006, 22:52 (il y a 6863 jours) @ alatan

Ma modeste contribution à la discussion: informations fournies par FINDPROFIT, USA, auquel je suis abonné.(reduit pour ne pas dépasser la taille limite).

Are Energy Bulls In Inventory Denial>


“Natural gas stocks are now substantially above last year's levels and more than 28% higher than their five-year average, even though a material portion (around 20%) of Gulf of Mexico production still remains offline due to Katrina damage.” Across the board, from the Oil Service Holders (^OIH) to the Oil Services Index (^OSX), energy shares have fallen around -15% on average in just a few short weeks. Momentum investors have been pummeled.

On the inventory front, natural gas stocks are now substantially above last year's levels and more than 28% higher than their five-year average, even though a material portion (around 20%) of Gulf of Mexico production still remains offline due to Katrina damage. Similarly, crude oil supplies are 12% higher than their seasonal average, and soaring gasoline supplies have crushed "crack spread" margins for refiners. In another example, tanker shipping rates were off -37% from a year ago during the seasonally strong Q4 period/

Certainly the warm winter has played a big part in averting a potential supply crunch, but even without the recent warm weather, inventories were surprisingly high and shipping rates surprisingly low in Q4.
Oil: "We would generally limit exposure to most pure-play oil stocks, unless: 1) there is clear, multi-year production growth visibility at the company, or 2) management is determined to return value to shareholders via buybacks, dividends, or other maneuvers. There's still a lot of value ready to be returned in this group, so don't ignore point #2."

Natural Gas: "If you assume that Gulf of Mexico production will return in 2006, with increased LNG imports not far behind in 2007, we believe that natural gas prices could be setting themselves up for a nice wallop as demand drops amid rising supply. For this reason, we would look to short outsized strength in natural gas equities into any winter-driven squeeze. Natural gas could be the short play of 2006."

So far, natural gas has turned into the short of 2006, while oil markets have bounced around a tight trading range. Meanwhile, we argued that coal stocks, LNG-plays, select alternative energy names ("avoid longshot dreams" and look for viable gas-to-liquids and coal-to-liquids plays), and select energy service names were the place to be in the group. In other words, we were talking our book, with long positions in coal stocks James River Coal (JRCC) and Massey Energy (MEE), LNG-plays Southern Union Gas (SUG) and Teekay Shipping (TK), gas-to-liquids play Sasol (SSL), and energy service name Pride International (PDE).

INSTITUTIONS SEEK TO UNLOCK VALUE IN COAL SHARES

Looking towards the coal sector, the evidence is mounting that we've seen a near-term top in prices (and even some modest declines), and the recent sharp pullback in natural gas prices and the warm winter weather should only reinforce that fact. This means that the "easy gains" from commodity price rises are now priced into many of the stocks, and that the driver of returns at this point will increasingly be management execution (particularly on the cost side) and industry consolidation.

While the medium-term fundamentals for coal pricing remain solid as utility demand grows, at this point our bottom-line return is going to be increasingly impacted by the two factors that we outlined above: management execution and industry consolidation. Managers at JRCC and MEE have so far failed to deliver on the first point, as tight labor markets and rising mining costs have put a cap on profit margins. We're making a bet that they can do a better job in 2006, or else more capable executive teams will be put in place. Similarly, both companies are well positioned as either consolidators or takeover targets. The question is whether their current management teams can take advantage of this opportunity - or whether new management will need to be hired that can.