IBD看好HES

5/30 08:52 EST
IBD报导，美国阿美拉达赫斯公司(HES) 是一家综合石油公司，主要从事勘探，生产，购买及销售原油和天然气。这些勘探和生产活动遍布美国，英国，挪威，丹麦，印度尼西亚，泰国及其它国家。同时公 司也制造、购买、运输及经销石油和其它能源产品。由于原油需求量持续上涨，而供应相对吃紧。油价接近每桶130美元并将继续升高。

尽管阿美拉达赫斯是一家综合石油公司，“业绩增长来自勘探业务，公司在巴西、澳大利亚、加纳、利比亚以及美国墨西哥湾地区的勘探业务前景复杂多变。”美林 分析师Erik Mielke表示，自去年在巴西近海地区发现大量盐碱油田以来，开采情绪不断高涨。阿美拉达赫斯公司在桑托斯盆地拥有40%的开发权，“我们认为阿美拉达 赫斯在市场方面拥有购买选择权，尤其是在巴西。”

德银的分析师Paul Sankey认为，投资者不应该太过乐观，“实时成功进行投资，你也不可能在3到5年内获得收益。阿美拉达赫斯是一只颇具吸引力的投资组合和股票，但在前 景乐观和实际的现金流量之间仍然有很长一段路要走。” 阿美拉达赫斯最主要的风险在于原油价格存在巨大泡沫。

It Finds Oil At Earth's Edge And Brings It To The Corner Gas Station

Thursday May 29, 5:59 pm ET
Marilyn Alva

People on the East Coast know the company for its gas stations. But Hess (NYSE:HES - News) has pinned its hopes on something else -- oil exploration and development -- and in more exotic locales such as Brazil and Ghana.

Just look where it is spending money. Of its $4.4 billion capital budget this year, $4.3 billion goes to E&P -- much of it outside the U.S.

It's easy to see why. Demand for oil keeps growing and supply continues to dwindle. Oil prices, now near $130 a barrel, keep setting new highs.

Though Hess is an integrated oil firm, "The bulk of our growth is expected to come from the drill bit," said Jay Wilson, vice president of investor relations. "Investment opportunities simply have not been able to compete with the E&P part of the business."

E&P Profits

The bulk of Hess' profits already comes from the production side. E&P raked in $824 million in net income in the first quarter vs. $340million last year. Much of the gain came from crude oil out of Equatorial Guinea and natural gas in Indonesia.

But it was more about high oil prices than actual output, which showed only a modest rise of 2.4% from a year earlier.

Contrast E&P gains with Hess' marketing and refining business. Net income there in the first quarter dropped to $16 million from $101million a year earlier. Execs put much of the blame on sharply lower refining margins, especially for gasoline and residual fuel oil.

Hess' retail network of about 1,300 gas stations is solid. But it isn't pumping out much in profits. When oil prices go up, the wholesale price of gasoline rises even faster than the ability to hike prices at the pump. So retail gas margins shrink in a rising oil-price environment.

Management expects modest production growth this year as well, but more robust gains starting in 2009. Gains are expected from fields in the Gulf of Thailand, deep-water Gulf of Mexico and Indonesia.

Hess has plenty of other exploration projects that it expects will pay off further down the road.

"It is drilling potentially game-changing prospects in Brazil, Australia, Ghana, Libya and the U.S. Gulf of Mexico," wrote Merrill Lynch analyst Erik Mielke.

Excitement is near a fever pitch over a huge sub-salt oil field discovered last year in offshore Brazil. Hess has a 40% stake in a large block in the Santos Basin, near the now-famous Tupi field, which has up to 8 billion barrels of recoverable oil.

No wells have even been drilled in Hess' block, but the big discovery made nearby has "led investors to be bullish on our block," Wilson said. Hess' stock has doubled in the last year.

Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM - News), Hess' partner, plans to drill the first well in the block later this year.

"We see Hess as a call option on resource, primarily in Brazil," wrote Deutsche Bank analyst Paul Sankey.

Don't get too excited, some warn. "Even if a well is successful, you're not talking about production there for five to seven years," said analyst Mark Gilman of Benchmark Co.

He's cautious about outcomes at other sites, too: "Hess has an attractive exploratory portfolio, but there's a long way to go between prospect and cash flow."

One of Hess' prime prospects is in Ghana. As in Brazil, Hess' acreage is near a famous neighbor: another large offshore discovery, called Jubilee, said to hold more than 500 million barrels of oil. "Our block is just to the south," Wilson said.

Hess plans to drill its first well near Jubilee in the second half of the year.

Closer to home, Hess is active in the shale formation of North Dakota known as the Bakken Shale, one of the hottest onshore unconventional oil plays in the U.S. It's underneath the Williston Basin, a conventional oil field that Hess has worked since the early 1950s.

"We're the largest acreage holder" in the Bakken Shale, Wilson said. "We also have significant infrastructure in the area. Obviously, given where the prices of oil are today, it is very exciting. But it's still very early days."

Though Hess' production volumes this year "are fairly uninspiring," Hess' operational leverage is far better than other oil-levered firms, wrote Deutsche Bank's Sankey.

New Managers

Since early in the decade, Hess has been reorganizing to focus on costs and more-sustainable, high-growth areas. About 90% of its top 100 E&P managers joined in the past five years, Wilson says. Many have global experience with large oil firms.

Most of Hess' cash flow has been reinvested back in the business. In raising the firm's debt rating recently, Fitch Ratings cited improved operations, costs and strong reserve replacement rates.

Sankey wrote that Hess' primary risk "is a collapse in the price of crude, as Hess has high leverage to crude prices."

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters estimate that Hess will earn $8.74 a share this year, up 46% from last year. (First-quarter per-share earnings of $2.34 were double last year's.) But factoring in a possible drop in oil prices, analysts see a 5% dip in 2009, to $8.27 per share.

Some, however, expect oil prices to go even higher.

Goldman Sachs analyst Arjun Murti has predicted that oil will reach $200 a barrel.