Investing in oil and gas stocks is actually quite simple, even if you don’t know anything about the energy industry. (My friends in Calgary would say I am living proof of that.)
From my experience in speaking with management teams and reading research reports, I’ve put together a basic information list for retail investors doing initial research into oil & gas companies. It’s not exhaustive, but the answers should provide the basic information to decide if you want to do more due diligence.
Either call management, or go to the company’s website and look at its corporate presentation. The Top 10 bits of information I want to find out initially is:
1. How many barrels of oil per day (bopd, or “boe” for natural gas – barrels of oil equivalent) is the company producing, and how quickly have they grown production in each of the last 3 quarters.
2. How much of their production is oil and how much is natural gas (gas prices are very low right now and doesn’t produce much if any cash flow for companies)
3. How much net cash or net debt do they have? This industry uses a lot of debt, so if a company actually has net cash, they could grow more quickly because they have an entire untapped line of credit waiting to go drilling, and grow the business. And of course no debt means no debt payments and flexibility in doing business......Read the entire article
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