Oil producers shrink to fuel new growth

Article Excerpt

These oil producers are shifting their focus to more-promising projects and cutting costs. However, we feel Chevron is the better pick for your new buying. CHEVRON CORP. $137 is a buy. The company (New York symbol CVX; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Resources sector; Shares outstanding: 1.8 billion; Market cap: $246.6 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.3; Dividend yield: 5.0%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.chevron.com) is the second-largest integrated oil producer in the U.S. by revenue after ExxonMobil (New York symbol XOM). Chevron plans to sell about $10 billion of its less-important assets by 2028; it has already completed $8 billion of those sales. The plan will let it focus on more-promising developments in the Gulf of America, the Permian Basin (Texas), West Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean. The cash will also help Chevron fund its acquisition of rival Hess Corp. (New York symbol HES) in an all-stock merger worth $60 billion, including Hess’s debt. ExxonMobil, which is a partner with Hess in an offshore project near Guyana, has exercised its…