Author: admin

Africa and Kurdistan Show Great Oil and Gas Potential: Lionel Therond

Posted on by admin

The Energy Report: Let's start with Kurdistan, Lionel. It's one of the hottest countries in the world for oil and gas exploration, especially in terms of production share contracts. A few prescient firms, such as WesternZagros Resources Ltd. (WZR:TSX.V) and Genel Energy Plc (GENL:LSE) control promising properties in Kurdistan. What's the back story?

Lionel Therond: Prospects have never been better for players in Kurdistan. The key factor has been the recent entry of Turkey into the export debate. Allow me to explain: Turkey has an energy-hungry economy ready to buy oil and gas production directly from Kurdistan as long as the physical routes exist for exports. In response, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has started building pipelines toward Turkey, which should be operational at the end of 2013/early 2014.

"International majors are voting with their feet and entering Kurdistan."

That was a paradigm change. We had been waiting three years for an agreement between the KRG and the Iraqi federal government on the commercial conditions for exports, and Baghdad's initial stance was to declare all licenses in Kurdistan illegal. But with new export routes that could potentially bypass Iraqi territory and lead directly into Turkey, Baghdad's agreement is no longer necessary, which has brought the Iraqi government back to the negotiating table. Continue reading "Africa and Kurdistan Show Great Oil and Gas Potential: Lionel Therond" →

Natural Gas Has Sex Appeal: Andrew Coleman

Posted on by admin

The Energy Report: In your last interview, you talked about raising price targets on energy sectors and individual stocks with promising reserves and production growth. Is that still your view, or have circumstances changed?

Andrew Coleman: What we're more worried about at this point is that the U.S. economy has been slower to recover than we expected. Meanwhile, the situation in Europe is getting worse and China's growth is slowing. To help us evaluate oil and gas markets in this context, our team here at Raymond James put together a bottom-up supply model looking at the oil shales, which was a follow-up to work the team had done on gas shales a couple of years earlier.

"The forward curve on gas is getting better."

The gas outlook has remained cautious, although not nearly as bearish as it was a couple of years ago. We have, however, become much more nervous on the short-term outlook for oil. We have a $65 per barrel (bbl) forecast for West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and an $80/bbl forecast for Brent for 2013. The forward curve on gas is getting better, and certainly 2013 gas is over $4 per thousand cubic feet (mcf) right now. Oil is our big concern and back in June we downgraded virtually every name that we follow in the EP space to the point where we now have no strong buys in our coverage group. Continue reading "Natural Gas Has Sex Appeal: Andrew Coleman" →

Goldman Sachs' Ian Preston Surveys the Gold ETF vs Equity Battleground

Posted on by admin

The Gold Report: Your recent commodity price research shows a gold price of around $1,811/ounce (oz) for 2013. Could you talk with us about how some of the macroeconomic issues influence that forecast?

Ian Preston: When we look at gold, we don't have in mind a specific supply/demand balance going forward. It's easy enough to see the supply side. In trying to forecast a price for gold, we tend to run out a 4% per annum contango from the current gold price until we think U.S. interest rate policy will reverse and rates will start to climb. That stage just keeps on moving outas it has with Quantitative Easing (QE) 3.

"If accommodative fiscal policies continue globally, gold could go significantly higher."

We look at the gold price to forecast earnings, and over the next 6 to 12 months, we'd expect $1,650/oz at the lower end and, if it breaks through, $1,8501,900/oz at the upper end. If accommodative fiscal policies continue globally, it could go significantly higher. But bear in mind that as equity analysts we're trying to forecast earnings, and to do so we want to be as close as possible to where the gold price will be for the next three to six months, even if the range is quite broad. Continue reading "Goldman Sachs' Ian Preston Surveys the Gold ETF vs Equity Battleground" →

What Moves Biotech Stocks? Ed Arce Has Answers.

Posted on by admin

The Life Sciences Report: Your experience is very broad. Just four or five years ago, you were a big pharma analyst at a major investment bank, where you followed the largest drug makers in the world. From your perspective today, as an analyst following small-cap biotech and medtech, can you talk about the clinical assets that drive value in smaller companies?

Ed Arce: From a market perspective, the key value drivers largely remain the same. First, and by far most important, are the clinical data. The stronger the efficacy, the better. But meeting clinical endpoints needs to translate into a clinically meaningful benefit. An outright therapeutic cure is optimal, but is also quite rare. Also, the overall safety and tolerability profile of any new therapeutic must be commensurate with the severity of the disease, and comparable to the risk profiles of any existing pharmacotherapies. Risk/benefit is obviously a trade-off. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in attempting to balance the risk/benefit equation, has leaned a bit in one direction or the other over the years.

The second point, from a market perspective, is the size of the patient population and the degree to which that population has been, or is, treatment nave.

The third point is value driven by a long product life, in the form of a long-dated patent suite, as well as any regulatory exclusivity offered to the drug. Continue reading "What Moves Biotech Stocks? Ed Arce Has Answers." →

Brent Cook and Quinton Hennigh Use Geology to Find Winners

Posted on by admin

The Gold Report: Brent, Quinton recently joined Exploration Insights. What does Quinton bring to the publication?

Brent Cook: Quinton is a geologist who can see the big picture. He focuses on how a mineral deposit forms and assesses if it is economic. His contributions allow us to cover a lot more ground in the same time and our discussions often refine and improve the final investment decisions. It's a whole aspect to the business that's going to help me make Exploration Insights better. Given the state of the junior mining sector, this is the time to be picking up the deposits and companies that are undervalued or that show potential value based on a real economic evaluation.

"Because this is such a high-risk game, we're mostly looking for homeruns."

Quinton came out of Newmont Mining Corp. (NEM:NYSE) and Newcrest Mining Ltd. (NCM:ASX). He knows how the big companies work and what their investment criteria are. Ultimately, our goal at Exploration Insights is to identify deposits that are going to have high enough margins and be large enough to attract a buyout or purchase from a major mining company. Quinton did that at Newmont. Continue reading "Brent Cook and Quinton Hennigh Use Geology to Find Winners" →