Hunting Share Discussion Threads

[aly48] 01/3/2007 13:44

From Citywire....
"Hunting oil services doubles profit for second year running"

[dwsmithdhf] 01/3/2007 09:34

Lets talk very round figures. Just my gut estimates with no other knowledge to back it up.

2007 EPS say 50p
Forward PE of say 15
Share Price 750p

[hawks11] 01/3/2007 08:44

Up 5% is very good, better than my jet lagged computer which showed the date as 28th Feb. I'm glad I bought these and will not be letting go for a while yet.

[flyfisher] 01/3/2007 07:33

what a stellar set of results, way ahead of upgraded forecasts,it will be interesting to see how the market responds

[aly48] 26/2/2007 16:22

From Bloomberg ...........

Oil Glut Hidden by Rig Dearth Makes Drillers Good Bet (Update1)
By Vibeke Laroi and Bruce Blythe

Feb. 26 (Bloomberg) -- The professionals most familiar with the so-called oil shortage know there's an estimated 3 trillion barrels under land and sea. That's why they're making their biggest bets in drilling rigs where the scarcity is no illusion.

Oil drillers ``are the most attractive way to go,'' said Don Hodges, who holds about 160,000 shares of Transocean Inc. and about 120,000 shares of GlobalSantaFe Corp. among the $1.1 billion managed by Dallas-based Hodges Capital Management. ``There is a shortage, it takes time to build one and it takes a lot of money. Their earnings are going to go up every year for the foreseeable future.''

Orders for offshore rigs have surged sixfold in the past five years, and rental rates are at the highest ever after oil prices tripled and industry profits soared. The wait for the most sophisticated rigs, which can drill in waters more than a mile deep, is a record three years, and the cost to lease one has quadrupled since 2004, climbing to more than $500,000 a day.

``It's a big problem,'' Ashley Heppenstall, chief executive officer of Stockholm-based oil producer Lundin Petroleum AB, said in an interview. ``There has been a gross underinvestment in the industry for a number of years and we paid for that last year. We had delays in some of our drilling campaigns.'' Lundin plans to sink wells this year in Norway, Russia and Sudan, and has permits to explore in Vietnam, Ethiopia and Congo.

Fredriksen, Pickens

Exxon Mobil Corp., BP and the rest of the largest oil producers are being forced to pay more to get the rigs they need to meet the world's ever-rising energy demand. With crude prices above $50 for most of the past two years, investors from Boone Pickens to billionaire John Fredriksen, who controls the world's largest oil tanker company, are betting on drilling companies to outperform producers.

``We think drilling companies are going to stay very busy,'' hedge fund manager Pickens, who is sticking to his prediction that oil prices will reach $70 a barrel this year, said in an interview from Qatar today. The situation for drillers is ``very positive for profitability,'' he said.

The rise in rig costs contributed to the five-year jump in oil prices by driving up production costs, hindering the discovery of new deposits and slowing the development of existing finds. There is some 3.02 trillion barrels of crude oil left under the ground, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The oil left underground in the U.S. alone is enough to replace every barrel pumped from Iran for the next 20 years, according to statistics compiled by London-based BP Plc, Europe's second-biggest oil company.

Economic Growth

Rising oil prices are braking global economic growth. Each $10-a-barrel increase in crude sustained for a year shaves between 0.4 percentage point and 0.6 percentage point off economic expansion, according to William Murray, a spokesman for the International Monetary Fund in Washington.

The price to build a deepwater rig has nearly doubled in less than a decade because of rising costs for steel, equipment and shipyard space, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. analyst David C. Smith.

A new deepwater rig that's capable of drilling in waters 7,500 feet or more costs $525 million to $625 million to build, up from $300 million to $400 million during the late 1990s, according to the Dallas-based analyst.

Stock Performance

The shares of drillers are poised to replace oil and gas producers as the industry leaders, Hodges said. The Standard & Poor's 500 Oil & Gas Drilling Index, which includes Transocean, Noble Corp. and Dallas-based Ensco International Inc., is little changed in the past year. A measure grouping producers such as Exxon Mobil and Chevron Corp., the Standard & Poor's 500 Integrated Oil & Gas Index, jumped 22 percent in that time.

The losers are smaller companies that sink wildcat wells in hopes of finding a gusher.

Desire Petroleum Plc, a U.K.-based oil explorer with a permit to drill offshore the Falkland Islands near Argentina, has sought a rig since early 2005. The firm lost 1.68 million pounds ($3.3 million) in its most recent six-month period.

``Enormous shortages of rigs are affecting everybody, from oil majors to companies such as ourselves,'' Ian Duncan, CEO at Desire Petroleum, said in a telephone interview. ``It is difficult to find a rig anywhere.''

The rigs most in demand are known as drillships and semisubmersibles, equipment used in deep waters.

Record Rates

The battle for rigs has intensified as oil producers boost exploration in the Gulf of Mexico, West Africa and Brazil. The number of offshore rigs in West Africa has increased to 56 from 44 a year ago, according to industry analyst ODS-Petrodata. In Asia and Australia, the number rose to 86 from 79.

``It takes three years from when you order a rig until it is delivered, and we haven't seen this before,'' said Martin Huseby Karlsen, an analyst with DnB NOR Markets in Oslo.

Lease rates have soared to a record. Seadrill Ltd., the Norwegian driller founded by Fredriksen, last month said it rented out a rig for an unprecedented $525,000 a day. Contracts in early 2004 were signed for about $125,000 a day.

``There's a fight for resources in the entire industry, not only rigs,'' Norsk Hydro ASA Chief Executive Officer Eivind Reiten said in an interview. ``That's putting pressure on costs, and may challenge the progress of some of the projects, but my company, Hydro, is fortunate in being well positioned there.'' Oslo-based Hydro is Norway's second-largest oil company.

Orders Surge

The number of offshore drilling rigs on order at shipyards, a measure of demand, has jumped to 115 from 18 five years ago, according to ODS-Petrodata. With few rigs yet delivered, the number of offshore rigs operating worldwide is little changed in the past five years, at 657. This has helped push up oil prices to about $61 as of last week from about $25 five years ago.

As oil rose, profit for rig owners swelled. Transocean's net income last year was $1.39 billion, up from $19.2 million in 2003. The stock more than tripled during that time. Noble's net income jumped to $732 million in 2006 from $166.4 million in 2003. Shares of the Sugar Land, Texas-based company doubled.

The retreat in oil prices from the record $78.40 a barrel in July poses no threat to exploration, said Alf Thorkildsen, chief financial officer for Seadrill Management AS, the Stavanger, Norway-based operating arm of Seadrill.

``We're not concerned with oil prices at around $50,'' said Thorkildsen. ``If they go below $30, that's another issue.''

Takeover Target

Seadrill is looking at buying competitors to get rigs and workers now and avoid the three-year wait. The biggest acquisition in the industry last year was when Fredriksen bought Norway's Smedvig ASA for $2.4 billion. Seadrill, based in Hamilton, Bermuda, beat out Noble and became the industry's sixth-largest following the purchase. Fredriksen declined to comment for this story.

GlobalSantaFe, the world's second-biggest offshore driller by sales, with 61 offshore rigs, would be a ``perfect fit'' for Seadrill, because of its ``premium drilling fleet and high- quality management team,'' said Alan Laws, an analyst at Merrill Lynch & Co. in New York. Jeff Awalt, a spokesman with GlobalSantaFe in Houston, declined to comment.

``If we can justify economically a good acquisition, we have the tools to do that,'' said Seadrill's Thorkildsen. He declined to identify possible targets.

While oil and gas prices rise and fall, rig owners can lock in years of revenue with long-term leases. Houston-based Transocean on Feb. 14 estimated its so-called contract backlog, or revenue expected from existing agreements, was almost $21 billion for the next nine years.

Looking Cheap

Shares of rig companies are also cheaper than oil companies including Exxon Mobil. Transocean trades at more than 10 times expected earnings, while Noble, the third-largest U.S. offshore oil and gas driller, is at 8.1 times. Irving, Texas-based Exxon Mobil trades at more than 12 times expected profit.

BP Capital LLC, the Dallas hedge fund managed by Pickens, boosted stakes in oilfield services stocks including Transocean and GlobalSantaFe in the fourth quarter, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Two of the five biggest holdings in the fourth quarter at Touradji Capital Management LP, a hedge fund firm founded by Paul Touradji, a former commodities trader at Julian Robertson's Tiger Management LLC, were Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc., an oil driller controlled by the Tisch family, and Hercules Offshore Inc. Both of the rig owners are based in Houston.

``We're bullish on offshore drillers,'' said Maxime Carmignac, who counts Noble, GlobalSantaFe and Transocean among the $13 billion in assets she helps oversee at Carmignac Gestion in Paris. ``Offshore drillers are cheap, undervalued and less volatile than producers and the commodities themselves, oil and gas. They are sitting on a huge amount of cash flow and may benefit from merger and acquisition activity.''

The Risks

Expectations are so high the risks from falling short are mounting. Baker Hughes Inc. on Feb. 15 said profit rose less than predicted in the fourth quarter and will trail behind estimates in the current quarter on slowing sales growth in North America. The Houston company's shares that day sank 9.4 percent, their biggest drop since 2001.

``We no longer think it's a slam-dunk that offshore drillers will outperform the energy industry,'' said Timothy Guinness, chairman of Guinness Atkinson Asset Management LLC in London, who helps manage about $2 billion in energy stocks. ``These stocks have performed very strongly over the last three years and the market knows their order books are very strong.''

Expectations that demand will stay strong have kept Robert Rodriguez, who oversees $10.7 billion at First Pacific Advisors LLC, invested in companies including Ensco. Rodriguez's FPA Capital Fund has nearly doubled the returns of the Standard & Poor's 500 Index over the past five years and says oil will rise because producers aren't finding new reserves fast enough.

``I'm bullish on oil and the oil drillers,'' Rodriguez, chief executive officer at Los Angeles-based First Pacific, said in a telephone interview. ``The era of low-cost energy is over.''

[olivercromwell] 22/2/2007 12:46

BP alone are expected to spend upto $18bn in the next 18 months on exploration capex..there seems to be a rush by the majors into deeper and less accessible areas as the 'easy wells' become less productive

oliverC

[hectorp] 21/2/2007 22:56

No he says himself on SDX thread it is only a notion. H'e has also bought the shares. I'll leave off here. If anyone was interested they can read the SDX thread.

[aly48] 21/2/2007 15:13

Any idea if it's based on any solid information or has he just bought some SDX shares?!

[hectorp] 21/2/2007 11:15

Robbie Burns the tipster is suggesting that Hunting Gibson or another largish oil services group might make a bid for SDX Sondex. Anyone comment here? ie, would SDX fit into Hunting's overall product and services set?

[jlwilliams] 20/2/2007 14:42

There's an article on the Tullow thread about the huge increase in costs to get oil out. I don't know whether Hunting are involved or not, but presumably they - and others - are making the most of the opportunity.

[enabler] 20/2/2007 13:32

Thanks aly48, good video link, Hunting does appear to be a good long term stock with excellent potential, lets hope the management can make the most of it.

[aly48] 20/2/2007 12:46

Video link to the presentation.........

[aly48] 20/2/2007 12:45

Relevant to HTG's future.........

Oil and gas to come at much higher price
IAN JOHNSTON

THE oil industry is set to become more environmentally damaging and less cost-effective as companies are forced to turn to sources which are harder to extract, it was claimed yesterday.

A study by the Edinburgh-based firm Wood Mackenzie found there were 3.6 trillion barrels of so-called "unconventional" oil and gas - which requires more energy and is more expensive to exploit - in the world.

Unconventionals include heavy and extra heavy oil, methane from coal beds and shale oil.

The report, called "Unconventional Hydrocarbons - the Hidden Opportunity", said that conventional oil supplies might not be able to cope with any growth in demand beyond 2020.

This means unconventional sources would become more important. Currently, the oil industry has started work on only 8 per cent of the 3.6 trillion barrels in the ground.

Wood Mackenzie, a long-time adviser to the energy industry, said: "It becomes unclear beyond 2020 that conventional oil will be able to meet any of the demand growth."

Its estimate of the amount of unconventional oil is double that of the world's undiscovered conventional resources.

Examples of hard-to-develop sources of oil include the tar belt in the Orinoco region of Venezuela and oil sands in Canada.

Phaedra Powilanska-Burnell, the managing consultant for Wood Mackenzie, said there were opportunities for oil firms.

"Wood Mackenzie believes that the size of the unconventionals hydrocarbon prize is potentially enormous, approaching 3.6 trillion barrels of oil equivalent of resources globally," she said.

The report said that, by 2025, unconventional oil sources were expected to supply more than 20 per cent of global demand.

It added that unconventional gas was likely to be at least as important, forecasting that this would account for more than 40 per cent of the United States' gas supply by 2010.

Duncan McLaren, of Friends of the Earth Scotland, said: "The energy cost of extracting unconventional oils is significantly higher than the energy cost of getting oil out of the North Sea, so clearly, in climate terms, they are going to doubly add to the problem.

"They are often highly carbon intensive when they are burned and they need a lot more energy to get them out."

[old giggleswickian] 13/2/2007 18:44

hectorp,
How does SDX's last trading statement stack up against that of HTG?

Ian.

[hectorp] 13/2/2007 13:27

Slightly O/T
Since September, Hunting has outperformed Sondex SDX by 50%!
I hope some of you are also interested in SDX. It's consolidating..

[nickbruce] 09/2/2007 19:49

Really like this stock. Steadily but surely it rises - doubled in last twelve months. Yet tumbleweed blows across the BB. Without wanting to sound antisocial, that suits me just fine. As you were.

[old giggleswickian] 09/2/2007 16:39

Nice to see consensus profit forecast getting ever closer to my own estimate. It is now given as £71.03m.

Ian.

[hectorp] 30/1/2007 14:35

I agree Huggybear, yet peer Sondex SDX has underperformed 'Hunting -Gibson, by no less than 50% on the 6 month chart. If I had good profits from Hunting, then Sondex could be agreat home for them in coming months, as Sondex is likely to play catch up.
NO advice intended, I only hold the Sondex shares. PS SDX has consolidated and I am almost certain breakout by more than 10% is imminent ( days).

[hawks11] 14/1/2007 16:56

Not a lot of interest here.I just wish I had invested a lot longer ago, there seems plenty of room for improvement in the share price and a good divi to look forward to. I have set a sensible stop though.

[rogerbridge] 18/12/2006 20:01

Nice rise at Petrofac too.Both are good long term holds.

[huggybear1954] 17/12/2006 09:51

Mention in the Daily Mail yesterday under 'Broker buys' section.

"Hunting ABN AMRO says buy at 570p (now 579p). Results likely to beat expectations. At a discount to the sector. Target price 645p."

Personally, I think this one still has a long way to run. This is a growing business in the right market at the right time. Sure, currency movements may adversely affect the bottom line, but costs are similarly affected and I think the rate of growth of the business is more significant. A hold for me until the story changes.

[hawks11] 14/12/2006 16:33

I have just seen that Teather & Greenwood provisionally raised Hunting's target price to 590p from 525p following Thursday's positve update but has concerns with two of its businesses closely linked to the US and Canadian Dollar.
Reiterates its buy rating, but says "after the recent strong run, the short-term upside would appear limited."
Another 10%?

[aly48] 14/12/2006 10:56

LONDON (AFX) - Oil services company Hunting PLC said current trading is strong and it expects the full year results to be ahead of market expectations, adding that it is well positioned with long term contracts and strong order books to enter 2007.

The company forecasts global drilling and production activity to improve by 9 pct next year.

Full year results will be announced on March 1, Hunting said.

[e-mail] mar/hjp

[aly48] 14/12/2006 10:01

Hunting PLC
14 December 2006
Hunting PLC
('Hunting', the 'Company')

Pre-Close Trading Update

Hunting's preliminary results for the full year to 31 December 2006 will be
announced on 1 March 2007.

Dennis Proctor, Hunting's Chief Executive, said: 'Current trading is strong and
our year end results are expected to be ahead of current market expectations.
Because commodity prices remain strong relative to historical levels, the recent
declines have not adversely impacted the Company's order books and production
backlogs.

In Gibson Energy, all divisions have seen growth through the year with Moose Jaw
Asphalt providing a significant contribution from wellsite fluids, lower
throughput costs and production efficiencies.

In Hunting Energy, the increased rig activity world wide has benefited all
products and services in well construction and well completion. Exploration and
production in the Gulf of Mexico has seen a recovery following the 2005
hurricane activity to levels at or near 100%.

Capital expenditure, committed in prior periods as well as the current year,
will provide additional opportunities for growth in 2007, following the benefits
received in 2006. For 2007, global activity is forecast to improve by
approximately 9% in drilling and production. However, exchange rates, oil
company capital expenditure increases and manpower will determine the year over
year growth level. The assets of Hunting are well positioned with long term
contracts, new more efficient equipment and strong order books to enter 2007.'

For further information, please contact:

Hunting PLC
Dennis Proctor, Chief Executive Tel: [phone]/ Tel: [phone]
Dennis Clark, Finance Director Tel: [phone]

Hogarth Partnership Limited Tel: [phone]
Andrew Jaques
Anthony Arthur

Notes to Editors:

Hunting PLC is an international oil services company providing solutions to the
world's oil and gas companies.

[huggybear1954] 14/12/2006 08:29

Looking very good indeed. How soon can we break through the £6 mark?