The Energy Report: Chad, you recently released an early look at 2014 titled, Drilling Down for Outperformance. You noted that you saw an average 3540% upside on your Buy-rated names. What are your criteria for picking companies?
Chad Mabry: To start, we use a discounted cash flow-based net asset value (NAV) approach to valuing exploration and production (EP) stocks. While cash flow is an important metric, NAV does a better job of comparing companies with different asset profiles, specifically within the small and midcap EP space. NAV does a better job of accounting for a company's upside potential than cash-flow metrics. We use a bottom-up approach to drill down into a company's asset base, its average type curve, estimated ultimate recoveries (EURs), well costs and so on. In this way we find out about the economics of those plays and what the sensitivities are to our commodity price deck. We then try to sort out companies that aren't being valued appropriately and identify strong risk-reward opportunities.
TER: There has been a lot of commodity price volatility this last year. How do you determine what prices to use when you're estimating NAV? Continue reading "Where to Drill for Portfolio Outperformance"
