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Looks like it's IVAN's turn to provide today's "entertainment".
Shaking my head but loving it ...
No, no, not more than that. Put the stop in at 9.40 when it was trading above 10. Thinking of moving it up to 9.70 tomorrow.
Sounds about right?
Thanks Chief. Stop in place but with a little extra room.
Dagan, this would give IVN nearly a 8 Bil. market cap.
Wow, the Friedland magic. LOL
Sell, hold, double up. I just don't know
From today's Globe:
Bullish On Bullion
http://www.globeinvestor.com/servlet/ArticleNews/story/GAM/20031001/RTIPP01-1/stocks/news?back_url=y...
Just a heads up: V.CMD had news yesterday and moved up 50% on pretty good volume. Pre-open looks interesting. Might be worth keeping an eye on.
PHPI
Or he crashed his system with them 4 new gold plated flat panels :)
If this new technology really represents a threat to De Beers, DB will soon be the proud owner of it. A small price to pay to protect their market.
Chief: The technology to produce "synthetic diamonds" has been around for a number of years. If I recall correctly, it was originally developed in the Sowiet Union.
OT: Yes Eva, been in it since April. Now own a third less but they are free. Pretty impressive gang running this show. It's a keeper for me for the time being.
Cheers and take care,
kidl
VERY late heads-up:
Ivanhoe (IVAN) ... Meant to mention it yesterday. Life got in the way and I wasn't around this morning. Maybe still ok on a pull-back???
Some NLR promoted it on CNBC on the weekend with a $10 12 months target.
PHPI
The following NG article is appearing in Barron's Magazine this week:
Independents' Day
Continued pressure on natural-gas supplies bodes well for producers, especially non-majors By HARLAN S. BYRNE (Barron's Magazine)
HOW TIMES HAVE CHANGED. Natural gas once played second fiddle to oil. Sure, millions used it for heating their homes and for cooking. But compared with petroleum, with which it often is found, it was relatively unprofitable for the big drillers and energy companies. Equally discouraging, for more than a decade, it was in oversupply, with industry analysts repeatedly having to retract their predictions of an imminent end to the "gas bubble." As a result, many energy concerns simply flared it off at the wellhead, producing colorful -- and wasteful -- plumes of flame in skies around the world, from Texas to Oklahoma to Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and Russia. But growing demand and stagnant supplies have pushed up the price of the fuel, which over a few months last winter spiked above $10 per million British thermal units before settling around $6. Although prices have eased recently -- they're usually weakest in the Northern Hemisphere's summer -- the long-term trend appears to be upward.
No less an observer than Alan Greenspan recently fretted in congressional testimony about soaring prices and potential shortages. Gas output is expected to drop slightly in the U.S. this year following a 4% decline in 2002, and Canada, the nation's main foreign supplier, won't be able to punch up exports for several years, until new pipelines are completed.
The current situation is bad news for consumers, who have already seen their natural-gas bills rise by hundreds of dollars a year. And it's unpleasant for industrial concerns, such as chemical, fertilizer, paper and steel outfits, which use the fuel to power production or as a raw material. Ironically, the ranks of sufferers include oil refineries, whose operations consume a lot of natural gas.
On the other hand, solid prices for both oil and gas have been blissful for producers, ranging from the major energy companies to smaller independent exploration and production specialists. Many have been recording sharply higher earnings and soaring cash flow. That's led some companies to boost their dividends and cut debt. It's also fueled speculation about consolidation within the industry, pushing up share prices throughout the natural-gas sector, particularly among the independent producers, some of them perceived as potential merger targets.
Recently, the price of gas has slid, to the range of $4.75 a million BTUs. But some investors expect it -- and related stocks -- to head higher as the summer fades and the cooler months approach; in fact, last week the price of natural gas prices topped $5. The big reason: Supplies are unlikely to rise significantly for at least two years, unless the next two winters prove to be unusually mild. And if those winters are severe - as the last one was in several parts of the nation - shortages would only grow worse.
Bolstering the argument for a long-term upside is that natural gas, unlike other fossil fuels, especially coal, is considered environmentally benign. Burning it doesn't produce a lot of pollutants or "greenhouse gases." And with fear about global warming rising and governments around the globe tightening air-quality regulations, the fuel's attractiveness is likely to continue climbing. And that can be only good for prices.
Given all this, a slew of analysts have turned bullish on the sector, at least for the short term. And, despite Wall Street's often myopic foresight, they could very well be right, assuming that prices of the other big product of these energy concerns -- petroleum -- doesn't slip much below the mid-to-high $20s per barrel over the next year.
Because the consensus forecast is for lower oil prices next year, virtually all energy companies are expected to have lower earnings in 2004 than in 2003, but that expectation already has been priced into the stocks. Any upside surprise, such as an unexpectedly strong rebound in the global economy or supply disruptions, could improve the pricing for petroleum.
Everyone knows how the shortage could be solved. Says Steven Farris, CEO of Apache, one of the leading independent oil and gas producers: "We need to drill more wells." In fact, there are signs that that is already beginning to happen. ExxonMobil, the biggest producer of natural gas, says it recently stepped up drilling for the fuel.
But even if new supplies could be quickly exploited -- in fact, a gradual ramp-up in production is much more likely -- there would still be another hurdle: delivering it where it's needed.
Lots of the world's gas lies in relatively remote areas. As Lee Raymond, ExxonMobil's chief executive, has noted: "There's plenty of gas, but getting it to market is a challenge." Several companies have explored, for example, in the Mackenzie Delta area in Canada's remote Northwest Territories but didn't begin commercial production because there was no easy way to move the fuel south. Now, with the market booming, long-dormant plans for a pipeline are likely to bear fruit before long.
Will all this result in the re-emergence of the gas bubble? That's unlikely anytime soon.
Total U.S. demand for natural gas has been running at about 22.5-23 trillion cubic feet a year, so that's a significant but far from overwhelming amount, especially in light of a continued drop in readily available U.S. underground reserves.
At its second-quarter earnings conference call, ExxonMobil disclosed that it had added $1 billion to its previously announced $10 billion exploration and production budget for this year, in great part to search for new pools of natural gas. ExxonMobil is the largest publicly traded natural-gas producer, with BP, Royal Dutch/ Shell and ChevronTexaco not far behind.
Independents such as Apache, Devon Energy, Burlington Resources and Pogo Producing are ramping up their exploration efforts, too. Pogo has drilled successfully off Thailand and plans to explore an old field in Hungary believed to have more recoverable oil and gas.
In recent years, Canada has been the source of a good deal of natural gas for the U.S. But it can't be relied on so readily nowadays. For one thing, lots of Canadian gas has been diverted to fields where it's employed in the production of oil from tar sands, an increasingly important industry for Canada. Also, as in the U.S., many Canadian energy basins have been heavily depleted. And existing pipelines are fully utilized, in any case.
Canada is the base for a number of companies that are enjoying the boom in natural-gas prices.
Although there are few pure plays in natural gas, the biggest potential bang could come from smaller producers.
You should have stayed. Your "pet" is lots of fun. Nearly as good as Friday ...
More for the NG followers:
GASBACKWARDS
By John Myers (for The Daily Reckoning)
"We're out of gas!" says Chairman Greenspan. Natural gas, that is. Earlier this month, Greenspan appeared before a Senate committee, as he often does. But on this particular visit, the maestro of monetary policy did not discuss the stalled economy or the record low interest rates that his Fed has engineered. Instead, he talked about the nation's looming natural gas shortage. And for once, he's right.
"Today's tight natural gas markets have been a long time in coming," Greenspan observed, "and distant futures prices suggest that we are not apt to return to earlier periods of relative abundance and low prices anytime soon."
In his testimony, Greenspan pointed out that the market - the best of our admittedly imperfect future predictors - is indicating high and rising methane prices throughout the decade. "The long-term equilibrium price for natural gas in the United States has risen persistently during the past six years from approximately $2 per million Btu to more than $4.50. Although futures markets project a near-term modest price decline from current highly elevated levels, contracts written for delivery in 2009 are more than double the levels that had been contemplated when much of our existing gas-using capital stock was put in place."
Because the United States imports 53% of its crude oil (compared to 35% during the oil embargo of 1973), the country relies increasingly on natural gas to supply its energy needs.
According to the July 21st edition of Time: "Crude oil is winding down. The last nuclear power plant was ordered in July 1973. No meaningful alternative fuels exist. In short, Americans are heading toward their first major energy crunch since the 1970s." Therefore, natural gas will play an increasingly important role in satisfying U.S. energy needs.
But it hasn't always been this way. In 1962, methane gas was considered a nuisance, not a collectable resource. Back then, gas was the ugly stepchild of the petroleum family - a safety hazard with no market value. Drillers cursed when they found it. In North America, gas sold for 30¢ per thousand cubic feet as recently as 1974.
But as the demand for energy surged in North America, the U.S. began to discover fewer and fewer rich oil wells. Meanwhile, companies began to consider the applications for natural gas. In short order, excess methane gas was not only being captured, but companies began to drill for it, routing production directly from the well into pipelines.
Today, natural gas is delivered to about 175 million American consumers through a 1.3 million-mile network of underground pipe. There are nearly half a million wells in North America producing natural gas.
One of the most valuable advantages of natural gas is that its supply cannot be disrupted by wars or embargoes. While the United States imports half of its oil supplies, a whopping 88 percent of the natural gas it consumes is produced domestically, while the remaining balance is imported from Canada via pipeline.
Unfortunately, many of the natural gas wells in the United States are beginning to run dry. A few years ago the Oil & Gas Journal published a wake-up article, detailing how Texas - which produces one-third of the nation's gas - must drill 6,400 new wells each year to keep its production from plummeting. That's a rate of 17 new wells every day. By comparison, a few years before, Texas was drilling just 4,000 wells to keep production steady.
This drastic falloff in production has occurred as drillers must drill smaller pools, which deplete much more quickly than their larger cousins. Today, new pools in Texas have become so small that after just one year of production, more than half the pool has been depleted. As U.S. domestic production continues to taper, more and more eyes are turning towards the reserves hidden in Canada.
According to the Oil & Gas Journal, the influx of Canadian natural gas into U.S. markets will steadily rise over the next several years. The WSOB, one of Canada's most attractive oil and gas basins, has over 200 Tcf of gas reserves - making it the largest basin in North America. It is still relatively immature, with a much lower well density than the over-drilled basins in the lower 48 states. In fact, only 25 percent of estimated reserves have been exploited in Canada, compared with 45 percent in the continental United States. This sets up windfall potential for Canadian petroleum companies and the shareholders who develop them.
Even conservative investors can't help but salivate at the rampant growth of Canada's natural gas markets. In 2000, a total of 5,500 gas wells were drilled in the WSOB. In 2001, 7,700 wells were drilled. Even with all this activity, geologists estimate that two-thirds of the WSOB's gas reserves have yet to be unlocked.
The expectation is that more and more Canadian methane will be used to quench America's abundant thirst for energy.
Speaking at a natural gas conference on June 26th, Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham suggested Congress should "help spur domestic production of natural gas and enhance our importation facilities to boost supplies, while reducing our nation's growing over-reliance on this one source of energy."
Also speaking at the conference, Cambridge Energy Research Associates Chairman Daniel Yergin said a hot summer could trigger higher gas prices. "Every recession since the early 1970s has been associated with spikes in energy prices," Yergin said. "The problem now isn't market failure, but disappointing drilling results, restrictions on exploration and a shift to new uses of natural gas that will certainly raise consumption," he said.
The natural gas market is just beginning to heat up...and as anyone who has worked around methane knows, heat can cause an explosive situation.
Yours for energy profits,
John Myers
This might be of interest to the resident NG followers:
Wednesday, July 23, 2003
CREDIT: Jeff McIntosh, National Post
Susan Riddell Rose, president of Paramount, hopes gas production loss will be less than projected.
CALGARY - An Alberta regulator has upheld a controversial decision to shut-in more than 900 gas wells in Alberta to protect untapped oilsands reserves.
The order is effective Sept. 1.
MFE ... Danny Deadlock featured it Tuesday. Maybe the reason for the increased volume ... ???
OT - Red:
Have you seen this article from the Globe's Ingram about AC?
http://www.globeinvestor.com/servlet/ArticleNews/story/RTGAM/20030704/wbmath0704b
He certainly shares your point of view
Heads up: T.BUS (the old Laidlaw)
OT: Nice trading Brian.
Only had ACA as LT. Sold all at $2+. Pretty sure I'll get it back much lower once the euphoria subsides. One 4 ct. clunker adds $60 Mil. to ACA's value??? Not in my books. LOL
Ashton (T.ACA) might be worth keeping an eye on today.
Aftermarket news: 4 ct. diamond in drill core
http://www.stockhouse.ca/news/news.asp?newsid=1760261&tick=ACA
Hi Dennis, finally broke down and signed up. Great thread! Thought this would interest you since you're NG loaded. From Danny Deadlock:
ENERGY WATCH
HOUSTON, June 25 -- Energy futures prices fell Tuesday, based on traders' expectations that government and industry reports this week will show a bearish build in US inventories of crude and petroleum products.
However, Wood Mackenzie Ltd., an Edinburgh-based consultant, said Tuesday that high natural gas prices should last for years in the US. "What is occurring now in the US energy market can be characterized as a painful period of adjustment as a commodity moves from relative abundance to relative scarcity," it said.
"We are not in a simple commodity cycle. High prices are likely to endure, and imports will continue to increase in share of the overall North American supply for natural gas," said Ed Kelly, head of North American gas and power consulting for Wood Mackenzie, in testimony to the US House Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources.
He said, "Declines in (North American gas) production have occurred even as the US has built the next generation of power plants (with 217,000 Mw of new capacity added since 2000 on a base of 783,000 Mw) nearly all fueled by natural gas."
Natural gas prices will remain high until an import infrastructure is built, "capable of transporting large quantities of gas to the US," and new native sources of gas can be brought to market, said Kelly. However, he said, "These solutions are approximately 5-10 years away, meaning that gas is likely to remain expensive for at least the remainder of this decade."
LNG is an even more distant solution, Kelly said. "While increasing LNG imports are a near certainty, this growth should be put into perspective," he said. "Wood Mackenzie believes that it will be 10 years or more before LNG represents even 10% of US supplies on an annual basis."
Drilling is critical
"Before imports can increase substantially and before arctic gas can reach the market in large quantities (after 2010), US and Canadian drilling levels will largely determine supply on the margin or whether the gas price is closer to $3.50(/Mcf) or $5.50(/Mcf) in wholesale markets," said Kelly.
"Further restrictions on drilling activity will be accompanied increasingly quickly by higher real energy costs. Policymakers should be aware of the new cost trade-off between drilling and the environment," he advised.
Canadian production drops
Meanwhile, the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin is suffering significant drops in production and in reserves added per well, along with accelerated decline rates, said members of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers at its 15th annual investment symposium this week in Calgary.
Proven reserves added per successful well drilled in Canada in 2002 were down 60% compared with 1998 levels, said Robert S. Morris, Banc of America Securities LLC, New York, in his report Thursday of the CAPP meeting. "Despite the perception that western Canada is less mature than the US, proven reserves added per successful well in the US have been greater than in Canada in each of the last 5 years," he said. "In fact, proven reserves added per well in the US last year were more than double" comparable Canadian reserve additions.
That is largely the result of "the recent focus in Canada on 'shallow' natural gas wells in an attempt to boost or sustain near-term production growth. Interestingly, companies noted that a large portion of the conventional natural gas resources in Canada's WCSB have been found and are in high decline (25-30%/year)," said Morris.
At that meeting, he said, "Several producers highlighted deeper horizons in the WCSB, frontier regions, coalbed methane, and other unconventional resources as potential areas for longer-term growth in Canada."
Morris also witnessed "renewed excitement over the proposed Mackenzie Valley natural gas pipeline, following the recent submission of a preliminary information package to regulatory authorities."
___________________________________________________________________
Public Lands: Meeting America's Energy Needs; Bush's Energy Policy Laid Out a Comprehensive, Long-Term Strategy, Says DOI
WASHINGTON, June 24 /U.S. Newswire/ -- At a congressional hearing today, Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Land and Minerals Management Rebecca Watson told the House Resources Subcommittee on Energy and Minerals Resources that Americans face a great challenge in meeting the country's energy needs. "Energy is the cornerstone of the nation's economy," Watson said. "We consume much more than we produce and imports of natural gas won't meet the increased demands."
The country produces 86 percent of its natural gas domestically, but 90 percent of the new powerplants will be fueled by clean-burning natural gas. Mature basins are declining, while access to new basins is not keeping pace. A Department of Energy report indicates that over the next 20 years, consumption of natural gas in the United States is projected to grow by more than 50 percent; while production, if it grows at the rate of the last 10 years, will grow by only 14 percent.
"We all share an important interest in the management and stewardship of America's natural resources and our energy future," Watson said. "The Bush Administration is committed to a long-term strategy that produces traditional energy on federal lands in an environmentally responsible way."
The President's National Energy Policy encourages development of a cleaner, more diverse portfolio of domestic renewable energy sources. The policy includes geothermal, wind, solar and biomass, as well as continued research into using hydrogen as an alternative energy source.
Coalbed natural gas from public lands can and should play a role in meeting the nation's increasing energy needs. Also known as coalbed methane, coalbed natural gas accounts for about 9.6 percent of the total natural gas reserves in the United States.