Big News in Oil and Gas
Since our last letter, BP's troubles continued in the Gulf and may scupper the White House offshore drilling plans. The best technical coverage of the crisis that can be found online has been compiled here by our resident drilling experts. Fat Prophets believe the cost of the Deepwater Horizon spill to BP could be as high as $15 billion while Investors Champion makes a strong case for it being an unprecedented buying BP opportunity. The other big oil news has been Rockhopper Exploration's confirmation of an oil discovery at its Falklands Sea Lion prospect. The stock rocketed from 37p to 250p+ in days as brokers hurried to upgrade their numbers. Fox Davies published an update and Proselenes gave his views on relative Falklands valuations.
SOCO International was actively discussed rallying 8%+ on news of broker upgrades from Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley just weeks after our in-depth interview with Roger Cagle. Doverbeach reported that Serica Energy has spudded the Conan well, and gave a sharp riposte to recent reporting of the Tullow Oil AGM.
Alexander Wood has produced a beginner's guide to the Thai listed energy sector, including Banpu, PTT and PTTEP, Fox Davies Capital's Gulf Keystone research was popular as the company works towards a Resolution in Kurdistan, and 7kiwi provided an update on Roxi Petroleum Plc.
As alternatives to fossil fuels continue to attract investment, we also visited with AFC Energy in Surrey and asked if the tide is turning towards the industrial adoption of fuel cell technologies?
Crashes, Elections, PIIGS and Goldman Sachs
As the Greece crisis continued to unfold, there was some great site debate over Tournesol's move into cash. As the contagion fears spread, resulting in a 9.2% intraday Dow Jones flash crash, Timarr asked Why do Stock Markets Crash?, looking at lessons from 1929 and Warren Buffett, and considered the frailty of machines. While High Frequency Traders have taken most of the blame, there is increasing suspicion that ETFs have played a hand. Niels Jensen discussed some of the concerns about ETFs in a highly recommended Absolute Return Newsletter: China, ETFs, Gold and the Commodities Con. And on the note of alleged misselling, Craig Pirrong …
