oil and gas

Petromanas Energy, $0.21, symbol PMI on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 693.7 million; Market cap: $145.7 million; www.petromanas.com), is an oil and gas company that’s focused on developing and exploring on its properties in Albania. Petromanas holds two production sharing contracts with the Albanian government. That gives it a 100% interest in Blocks D and E and a 25% interest in Blocks 2 and 3. In total, these areas include over 1.1 million acres. Petromanas also holds exploration properties in France and Australia. The company’s 75% partner in Blocks 2 and 3 is global giant Royal Dutch Shell plc, which gives the stock some speculative interest. Shell is contributing $100 million for exploration and seismic costs. It also paid Petromanas for costs incurred before Shell became its partner in February 2012....

CHEVRON CORP. $125 (New York symbol CVX; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Resources sector; Shares outstanding: 1.9 billion; Market cap: $237.5 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.1; Dividend yield: 3.2%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.chevron.com) is the second-largest integrated oil company in the U.S. by revenue, after ExxonMobil (New York symbol XOM).

Chevron gets 90% of its earnings by producing oil (67% of total production) and natural gas (33%). The remaining 10% comes from its refineries, petrochemical operations and 8,050 gas stations in the U.S., which operate under the Chevron and Texaco banners. The company owns 400 of these locations and supplies fuel to an additional 8,600 stations outside the U.S.

At the end of 2013, Chevron’s proven reserves totaled 11.2 billion barrels of oil equivalent (57% oil and 43% natural gas). Based on its average 2013 production of 2.6 million barrels a day, that would last 11.8 years.

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Last week we turned to our newsletter on aggressive investing, Stock Pickers Digest, to discuss two energy stocks embarked on big growth projects (see the article here). Today we analyze two high-yielding energy stocks we cover regularly in our newsletter for conservative investing, Canadian Wealth Advisor. CRESCENT POINT ENERGY CORP. (Toronto symbol CPG; www.crescentpointenergy.com) produces oil and natural gas in Western Canada. Its output is weighted 91% toward oil and 9% to gas....

PLEASE NOTE: Due to the Good Friday holiday, our next Hotline will go out on Thursday, April 17, 2014. BANK OF NOVA SCOTIA, $64.24, Toronto symbol BNS, has formally changed the name of its ING Direct subsidiary to Tangerine (www.tangerine.ca). The bank bought ING Direct from its Netherlands-based parent, ING Group, in November 2012. This business provides no-fee banking services to 1.9 million clients, mainly over the Internet. The new name will let Bank of Nova Scotia keep using the orange colour associated with the ING Direct brand....

BIRCHCLIFF ENERGY (Toronto symbol BIR; www.birchcliffenergy.com) develops, produces and explores for oil and natural gas, mainly in the Peace River Arch area near the Alberta/B.C. border. About 81% of its output is gas. The remaining 19% is oil....

Rock Energy, $5.80, symbol RE on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 39.4 million; Market cap: $228.7 million; www.rockenergy.ca), produces oil and gas in Western Canada, with a focus on the greater Lloydminster area, along the Alberta/Saskatchewan border. Its output is 90% oil and 10% gas. In the three months ended December 31, 2013, the company produced 4,023 barrels of oil equivalent a day, up 50.2% from 2,678 barrels a year earlier. Rock’s cash flow per share jumped to $0.24 from $0.08. The company’s total debt of $8.4 million is just 3.7% of its $228.7-million market cap. That, plus its rising cash flow, gives it the funds to keep drilling and increasing its output. The stock trades at 3.8 times the company’s forecast 2014 cash flow of $1.52 a share....

ISHARES MSCI EMERGING MARKETS EASTERN EUROPE INDEX FUND $23.42 (New York symbol ESR; buy or sell through brokers) has 73.6% of its assets invested in Russia, followed by Poland at 20.3%; Czech Republic, 3.0%; and Hungary, 2.4%.

The fund’s top holdings are Gazprom (Russia: gas utility), 16.0%; Lukoil (Russia: oil), 10.0%; Sberbank (Russia: bank), 9.0%; Magnit OJSC (Russia: retailing), 5.0%; PKO Bank Polski (Poland: banking), 4.3%; Novatek (Russia: natural gas), 3.5%; and MMC Norilsk Nickel (Russia: mining), 3.3%.

iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Eastern Europe Index Fund’s expense ratio is 0.67%.

The fund’s concentration in Russia, and in oil and gas, adds risk, especially after Russia’s recent annexation of Crimea.

The U.S....

ISHARES FTSE/XINHUA CHINA 25 INDEX FUND $35.84 (New York symbol FXI; buy or sell through brokers) is an exchange traded fund that aims to track the FTSE/Xinhua China 25 Index, which is made up of the 25 largest, most liquid Chinese stocks. All of the stocks in the index trade on the Hong Kong exchange....

CRESCENT POINT ENERGY CORP. $40.44 (Toronto symbol CPG; Shares outstanding: 395.7 million; Market cap: $16.1 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk; Dividend yield: 6.8%; www.crescentpointenergy.com) produces oil and natural gas in Western Canada. Its output is weighted 91% toward oil and 9% to gas.

The company continues to focus on its Bakken light oil development in southeastern Saskatchewan.

In the three months ended December 31, 2013, Crescent Point’s cash flow rose 23.9%, to $533.3 million from $430.4 million a year earlier.

The company increased its production by 18.2%, to 127,641 barrels of oil equivalent (including gas) from 108,007....

RUSSEL METALS (Toronto symbol RUS; www.russelmetals.com) is one of North America’s largest metal distributors. It serves 39,000 clients at 53 locations in Canada and 12 in the U.S....