Based on the aggregated intelligence of 170,000-plus investors participating in Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's free investing community, natural gas compression equipment specialist Natural Gas Services Group (NYSE: NGS) has earned a respected four-star ranking.

With that in mind, let's take a closer look at Natural Gas Services and see what CAPS investors are saying about the stock right now.

Natural Gas Services facts

Headquarters (founded)

Midland, Texas (1998)

Market Cap

$216.4 million

Industry

Oil and gas equipment and services

Trailing-12-Month Revenue

$53.9 million

Management

CEO Stephen Taylor (since 2005)

CFO G. Larry Lawrence (since 2010)

Return on Equity (average, past 3 years)

8.5%

Cash/Debt

$19.14 million / $2 million

Competitors

Baker Hughes (NYSE: BHI)

Sources: Capital IQ (a division of Standard & Poor's) and Motley Fool CAPS.

On CAPS, 97% of the 479 members who have rated Natural Gas Services believe the stock will outperform the S&P 500 going forward. These bulls include All-Stars dcrednek and Diagoras.

Last year, dcrednek listed several of the company's positives: "Very healthy operating margin, cash reserves exceed total debt. ... Given the strong and rising demand for natural gas, looks like NGS will be a solid bet to outperform a sideways moving market over the next several years."

Currently, Natural Gas Services even sports a cheapish price-to-cash flow of 7.5. That represents a clear discount to much larger energy service plays like Baker Hughes (33.9), Schlumberger (NYSE: SLB) (21.6), and Weatherford (NYSE: WFT) (14.9).

CAPS All-Star Diagoras expands on the outperform argument:

Right now, the ratio of oil price to natural gas price is at a relative high, and will likely fall given the various advantages of natural gas as a fuel coupled with increased de-hedging of natural gas production starting in 2012. This company, which fundamentally is fairly strong, should benefit from rising natural gas prices.

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