Total's Turnaround Hits A Speed Bump

This article was originally published by Seeking Alpha on September 22, 2014.

By Sarfaraz A. Khan

Summary: French oil major Total has recently updated its cash flow and production outlook through 2017, which wasn't encouraging. The company's turnaround has been hit by project delays and asset sales. Is it time to give up on this company?

These U.S. Energy Stocks Might Get Trapped in Ukraine Conflict

This article was originally published by TheStreet on July 18, 2014.

By Sarfaraz A. Khan

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- The Obama administration Wednesday announced its largest package yet of economic sanctions against Russia, hitting the country's biggest oil producer Rosneft (RNFTF_) and other energy firms in a move that could also wind up hurting U.S. energy companies that operate in the region.

China Will Be Profit-Gusher for French Oil Company Total

This article was originally published by TheStreet on April 16, 2014.

By Sarfaraz A. Khan

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- China and its energy market are big factors in French oil major Total's (TOT_) long-term plans. 

The company recently has struggled with growth, but it could double its liquefied natural gas, or LNG, supply to China in the coming years as it targets a 30% increase in production by 2017.

Last year, Total's sales fell 2% to $251.73 billion while profits fell 18% to $11.21 billion. The company's hydrocarbon production remained flat, at 2.3 million barrels of oil equivalents per day. But Total has forecast daily production of 2.6 million barrels of oil equivalents by 2015 as it tries to satisfy China's ever increasing energy needs.

Why Investors Should Not Be Worried About Chevron's Massive CapEx

By Sarfaraz A. Khan and Gohar Yousuf

One of the world’s leading integrated energy companies, Chevron (CVX) has been spending enormous amounts of cash on some of its biggest projects to ramp up its production of oil and gas. As a result, the company has not returned as much cash to shareholders, through dividends and buybacks, as they would have liked. Following the global financial crisis, investors have favored companies with attractive dividends and buyback programs, as opposed to companies like Chevron, who invest in their long term future. This is one of the reasons why this oil giant’s shares have remained under pressure, despite having attractive long term growth prospects.

Going Over the Budget
In its most recent quarterly results, Chevron reported a 25.6% year-over-year increase in capital and exploration expenses to $10.59 billion. A significant portion of this increase was attributed to the company’s operations in the international markets, where its spending grew by 28% to $7.84 billion. In the U.S, Chevron spent around $2.7 billion, showing an increase of 18% from the same quarter last year. Overall, in the first nine months of the current year, Chevron has... read full article at GuruFocus

This Oil Major Has Discovered A Billion Barrels Of Oil But Nobody Cares - Why?

From Seeking Alpha

Very few energy companies can claim to be more successful at finding oil in 2013 than Eni SpA (NYSE:E). The Italian energy giant, which is 30% owned by the government, has made some of the biggest oil and gas discoveries this year in Africa, Europe and Asia but in the last 52 weeks, due to its own inefficiencies and the problems with its oilfield services subsidiary Saipem SpA, its ADR has been up just 4.28%. Several analysts have identified (such as here), that Eni is undervalued as compared to its peers like Total (NYSE:TOT) and Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE:RDS.A). I believe that its undervaluation is justified and the company will continue to underperform in the coming quarters.

Oil Discoveries

In 2013 alone, Eni has confirmed 11 discoveries representing a total of nearly a billion barrels of oil equivalents. Some of the bigger ones have been in Ghana, Pakistan, Egypt and Mozambique. More recently, Eni hit .... Read More