The Highest-Rated Oil and Gas Stocks

Based on the aggregated intelligence of 180,000-plus investors participating in Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's free investing community, the 15 stocks below are the highest rated in the oil and gas industry.

CAPS contains more than just the crowd's opinions. The votes of CAPS' best-performing members, known as All-Stars, count more in shaping each company's rating than do the picks of their poorer-performing peers. That way, investors can intelligently use members' collective wisdom to make better decisions.

The highest-rated oil and gas stock is...
Looking at the aggregate data, we see that our community rates QR Energy (NYSE: QRE  ) above the rest and for good reason. As CAPS player TomFoolNC wrote in July: "8% div, production 85% hedged, ability to grow."

Since that time, QR Energy announced a raise in its quarterly distribution from $0.4125 to $0.475 a unit for a 9.3% yield.

Here are the rest of the 15 highest-rated companies in the industry along with their CAPS rating:

	Company	CAPS Rating (out of 5)	Market Cap (in millions)
1	QR Energy	*****	$734
2	ECA Marcellus Trust I (NYSE: ECT  )	*****	$479
3	Lone Pine Resources	*****	$658
4	QEP Resources	*****	$6,784
5	Eagle Rock Energy Partners (Nasdaq: EROC  )	*****	$1,297
6	Contango Oil & Gas	*****	$1,022
7	Southwestern Energy	*****	$14,860
8	Denbury Resources	*****	$6,904
9	Oasis Petroleum	*****	$2,940
10	Energy Partners	*****	$588
11	Breitburn Energy Partners	*****	$1,065
12	Oilsands Quest (AMEX: BQI  )	*****	$92
13	Devon Energy (NYSE: DVN  )	*****	$26,407
14	Chesapeake Energy (NYSE: CHK  )	*****	$17,866
15	Ultra Petroleum (NYSE: UPL  )	*****	$5,570

Source: Motley Fool CAPS as of Nov. 7.

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