In this clip from Industry Focus: Energy, Motley Fool analysts Sean O'Reilly and Taylor Muckerman talk about three of this month's biggest news stories in energy: Apache's (APA +3.89%) gargantuan finds in the Permian, Spectra Energy's (SE +0.00%) buyout from Enbridge (ENB +0.15%), and EOG's (EOG +1.40%) acquisition of a small private company for some $2 billion.
A full transcript follows the video.
This podcast was recorded on Sep. 8, 2016.
Sean O'Reilly: What's up with this couple billion barrel find out in the Delaware basin?
Taylor Muckerman: Yeah, Apache striking liquid gold. Two billion barrels found --
O'Reilly: I thought it was three. It's a lot.
Muckerman: At least two billion barrels of oil. They're saying it's a new West Texas field, it's in a far-off corner of the Permian basin. Two billion, that's the biggest fine in several years.
O'Reilly: So, what did you mean when you said that just now? It'd been drilled 100 years ago, and everyone forgot about it?
Muckerman: I guess, geologists figured that it really wasn't conducive to fracking, but now Apache is looking at what could be an $8 billion oil field. Hence, they were up double-digit percent yesterday.
O'Reilly: Yeah. That's pretty good. Speaking of double-digit percentage gains, Spectra Energy getting bought out for $33 billion.
Muckerman: Something like that.
O'Reilly: This shocked everybody, right?
Muckerman: Yeah, I think it did. Neither company is struggling. I think Enbridge just wants to diversify. It's traditionally more oil heavy, and Spectra is very much more natural gas heavy. So, they decided to pony up and create the largest energy infrastructure company in North America a very wide margin. Take that, Kinder Morgan (KMI 0.07%)!
O'Reilly: Poor Kinder Morgan.
Muckerman: Womp womp. First they cut their dividend, now their secondbest. Well, second biggest. Best is a different argument.
O'Reilly: They're going to have to buy ONEOK or something [laughs].
Muckerman: Who knows. They need to worry about that debt that they cut their dividend to pay off.
O'Reilly: So, this was just a stock deal, right?
Muckerman: All-stock deal. I think Enbridge shareholders own around 57% of the company, Spectra shareholders will own 43% of the company, give or take a tenth or a hundredth somewhere along the lines.
O'Reilly: Everybody's buying stuff this week.
Muckerman: Big week.
O'Reilly: EOG announced over the weekend, was it? Monday?
Muckerman: It came out on the 6th.
O'Reilly: They bought a small private oil and gas producer. By small, I mean $2.3 billion. Is this the sign that things are turning?
Muckerman: It could be. EOG is traditionally not acquisitive company, because they like what they own and they figure they could get a higher return on just drilling what they know they have, which has shown to be superior to most other companies' land holdings. But this company had some acreage. I say some, it's a considerable amount, obviously, if you're paying over $2 billion for it, that bordered on some of their acreage. So, now they can drill longer horizontal wells to access that oil without having to drill multiple wells. It's kind of just supplementing the acreage they already own, expanding their footprint rather than buying up somewhere else in the country. It's basically just, their blob is growing.
O'Reilly: Right. So, this still fits within their corporate culture.
Muckerman: Absolutely.
