Chevron remains our top oil stock

Article Excerpt

U.S. oil production continues to rise, as new drilling techniques like fracking significantly cut costs. That helps protect the profitability of many oil fields, even if oil prices move down. However, we feel oil prices will likely stay in a narrow range for the next year or so. That’s because OPEC, and other producers including Russia, have agreed to cap their output until the end of 2018. Large, integrated producers like Chevron are still the best way for conservative investors to gain exposure to oil. The company should boost this year’s cash flow with two recently completed projects in Australia. Chevron’s strong balance sheet also lets it pursue other growth projects CHEVRON CORP. $109 (New York symbol CVX; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Resources sector; Shares o/s: 1.9 billion; Market cap: $207.1 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.6; Divd. yield: 3.7%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.chevron.com) is the second-largest integrated oil company in the U.S. by revenue, after ExxonMobil (New York symbol XOM). Producing oil and…