Oil and Gas Investor Magazine - February 2014

Cover Story

Oil's New Launching Pad

Pad drilling and batch completions come of age as the industry transforms itself, the rig fleet and how it brings new hydrocarbons to market.

Feature

A Pad Primer

In retrospect, 2013 will go down as a third key inflection point in unconventional oil and gas development.

Commercial Banking: Margins Pressure Energy Uplift

The competition has never been fiercer in the commercial-banking sector as it wrestles for position in an era of unequaled excess liquidity.

Deep, Horizontal Oil: Tuscaloosa Marine Shale

The recipe for making economic oil from this long-known formation may be rolled out across the areally large reservoir this year.

Exit Strategies: The Permian Arbitrage

Wall Street's love affair with Permian Basin explorers has created a compelling opportunity for private players to IPO.

Fang Strikes In the Permian

Diamondback Energy, led by Travis Stice, president and chief executive officer, has been striking it hot in the Midland Basin, focusing on lowering costs and pushing up EURs.

Investing Guidelines: Cycle-Tested Lessons From The Markets

Distilled below, in an excerpt from Thomas A. Petrie's new book, Following Oil, are some key lessons learned and observations

Investment Stategies: Upstream Value Drivers

How are companies valued in today's public market? An analysis suggests the highest valuations are marked by long inventory life and high core-play internal rates of returns.

Manufacturing Mode Multiples

Energy is a commodity business, and it comes as no surprise that significant attention tends to be focused on the level and direction of commodities

Mexico Begins To Open Up

Development of shale and tight resources in Mexico has hitherto been hampered by a highly nationalized oil and gas regulatory framework

Service Stocks To Watch: Under Fire In The Hole

The U.S. onshore service market is in a Darwinian struggle as the sector remains overcapitalized and rates bottom out.

At Closing

McCarroll's Deja Vu

A year ago, Fieldwood Energy was three guys and an idea. Not anymore.

Bright Spots

Meet Shaw Ottis

Shaw Ottis is helping to craft Freeport LNG's future.

Company Briefs

Company Briefs

Marcellus-focused Rice Energy plans to go public

Completions

Will 2014 Pay Dividends?

E&Ps contemplate more buybacks and dividends in 2014.

E&P Momentum

Hydrocarbon Management Organizations

Is it time for the energy industry to follow the medical community into the HMO era? Instead of health maintenance organizations, think of hydrocarbon management organizations.

From the Editor-in-Chief

Mutiny On The Bounty

Hamm said he thinks it will take another 10 years before we have a glut.

Legends

Chatting With Ray Holifield

Ray Holifield is helping still generating prospects--and fast.

NewsWell

Analysts Bracing For Dip In WTI While Waiting For Uptick In Natural Gas

Hit the brakes: Sentiment for 2014's WTI oil price isn't great, but it is still solid.

Can Fracing Save Water? A University of Texas Report Says It Can

Contrary to the conventional beliefs of many environmentalists, new research shows that hydraulic fracturing has at least one major (and ironic) environmental benefit: saving water.

Channel Crossing: Total Invests In British Shale-gas Exploration

French company Total confirmed in January that it had become the first global oil and gas major to invest in the burgeoning UK shale-gas industry.

Chesapeake's Utica Sweet Spot Is 'Well-Defined And Localized'

Chesapeake Energy Corp.'s position in the Utica shale increasingly seems to be on the outside looking in

ExxonMobil: 'All Of The Above' Required To Meet Growing Energy Demand

Driving increased energy demand is anticipated population growth that will reach nearly 9 billion in 2040 from about 7 billion currently

Mexican Energy Reform Says 'Vamonos' To Increased Production

Pemex will continue to be a large player in the country's energy industry, but the doors will now be open for other public and private investors

Modest Uptick For U.S. E&P Spending After 2013 Declines

U.S. E&P spending will grow by a modest 5.3% in 2014, a mild bounce back from 2013 when spending declined by about 3.2%.

Opportunity For Oil Exists Among Supply-Glut Fears And Fragile Gas Prices

The prospect of Iran and Libya flooding the world with crude has skittish investors oil shy as concerns rise that global crude capacity will tank West Texas Intermediate crude prices.

USGS: 85 Tcf In North Slope Hydrates 'Technically Recoverable'

“When we look at it, Alaska has always been our best gas hydrates experimental place"