Tag: CVE

Oil company valuation – general note

Most oil producing companies also produce natural gas. Since natural gas is an input to gasoline production, typically companies internalize their natural gas production to their operations. However, many oil and gas companies produce excess natural gas and this contributes to their income.

Watch out for some earnings disappointments due to lower natural gas prices. Cenovus (TSX: CVE), for example, announced less than consensus earnings this morning due to natural gas pricing. Another company that is due to report that has significant natural gas production is Arc Energy Trust (TSX: AET.UN).

I am just a passive observer of these two companies, in addition to many others in the sector. There are nuggets of value here and there, but all of those are in the non-dividend bearing category. Companies like Cenovus (and its sister entity, Encana) are good stores of value in energy, but are unlikely to triple in valuation if energy commodities increase. They should almost be treated like annuities, assuming fossil fuels are not supplanted by something with superior energy density in the future (not in my lifetime).

Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage

Anybody investing in oil should know the fundamentals of how the oil is extract out of the ground. The traditional (called conventional) method is used in places like Saudi Arabia – sticking a tube in a strategically-located position in the ground and sucking up the contents.

Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage was an invention that has lead to the opening up of oil reserves that otherwise would have been inaccessible. There are quite a few companies in the Alberta area that use this to mine oil. A very basic example of how this works is on Cenovus’ website, which is semi-education and semi-corporate propoganda.

Cenovus used to be part of Encana, Canada’s largest natural gas producing company. They split off last year.

The other form of mining, taking tar sands (bitumen) from the surface and processing the material, is done by companies such as Suncor, and generally give the industry a perception of being environmentally damaging.

As the price of oil continues to increase, alternative methods become increasingly economical and it is well worth it for an investor to educate themselves on the processes used to extract energy from the earth.