This Will Be The Lowest Cost Producer for the Next 76 Years

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I want to show you the true lowest cost natural gas producer in North America.

I’m not exaggerating.

I’m not guessing.

The financial statements make it absolutely clear–this company has the best piece of land on the continent.

That isn’t opinion; the hard data tells me that it is so.

I’m going to run through some facts to back this up.

Fact one – this company’s operating cost for producing natural gas is 30 cents.

You read that right.

I said 30 cents.

Find me someone with lower operating costs and I’ll be very, very surprised.

Fact two – this company’s all-in corporate cash costs are under 90 cents/mcf.

What that means is that when you include all expenses, even those not related to production (interest, office, anything)…

That this company can turn a profit with natural gas under 90 cents.

This company’s all-in cash costs are a full dollar lower than its competitors.

That isn’t a Big Deal–it’s a HUGE deal.

Incredible…..costs that are 60% less than a normal company.

Fact three – In the most depressed natural gas pricing environment in recent memory this company will still grow by a whopping 40% this year.

This is the true measuring stick for how good a company’s assets really are.

If you are truly the low cost producer you can do things that seem impossible.

Like growing 40% when natural gas prices have collapsed.

And doing it without compromising your balance sheet.

Fact four – This company has more than 76 years’ worth of drilling of these incredible wells ahead of it.

What makes this possible? One of the key factors is what the industry calls stacked pay.

This company has productive gas zones stacked on top of productive zones–like a multi-level layer cake.

These zones can be tapped into from the same drilling pad–drill once, flow many times.

All of those stacked formations create incredible cost efficiencies.

And the unique asset creates the high flow rates.

Since 2010 production for this company has increased eight fold.

Even this year with natural gas prices decimated the company is still growing by 40%.

Everyone claims to have great assets, but the truly great assets reveal themselves in the numbers.

This is the lowest cost natural gas producer on the continent.

At higher prices it will grow at astounding rates.

At lower prices it still grows faster than most competitors can during the boom times.

And it can do it for years to come. CLICK HERE to learn more.

This Stock has 400% Upside in the Near Term—And I Can Prove It

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Imagine if you will a street on which there are three identical houses.

I’m not talking about similar houses.

Not houses that look kind of the same.

I’m talking about identical houses.

Built the same year, in the same condition, with the same design and square footage.  Even the colors are the same.

1

If House #1 sold for $400,000 dollars, and House #3 also sold for $400,000 dollars—what is House #2 worth?

The answer is obvious–$400,000 dollars.

That is how you value an asset.

There is no better data-point for a valuation than a recent transaction involving a similar asset between two arms-length parties.

But what if you could buy House #2 for $100,000?  Would you—the exact same house for one quarter the price?

That’s the opportunity today with the most mis-priced oil producer I have ever seen.

There was a major land deal done right beside this junior stock—at FIVE TIMES the valuation of said junior stock.
My subscribers and I started accumulating the stock—so now it’s only undervalued by 400%, not 500%.

It’s true–this micro-cap producer is trading for one-quarter the price of an asset sale that transpired just days ago.

This isn’t a good opportunity.

This is a truly unique set of circumstances.

Where I don’t just suspect a company may be ridiculously undervalued…I am certain of it.

Acreage directly offsetting the land that this little company owns just sold in an arm’s length transaction.

It would not be possible to obtain a better data-point from which to value this micro-cap producer.

And when something is this clearly mispriced the opportunity doesn’t last long—even when nobody is paying attention to junior oil producers.

This is the kind of unique set of circumstances that you can’t let pass by.

Get the name and symbol of this stock—and I haven’t seen such huge, short-term gain potential in years—RIGHT HERE.

Why Natural Gas Prices Are on The Move

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WHAT’S HAPPENING IN THE NATURAL GAS MARKET?

I’ve been buying natural gas stocks in 2016–for the first time in over five years.  In this short, 6 minute video, I tell you what’s happening  in the natural gas market in North America–where it’s come from since early 2016, what is driving the price and some of the Market’s psychology in pricing natgas for the rest of the year.

I filmed it in late June, but everything still holds true today.  I called for a peak in summer pricing two weeks ago, but it looks like we got that Monday of this week.  But there is a lot of reason to think that natgas fundamentals are tightening, and the bulls should be very encouraged for this winter season.

If you just want to read the transcript, click on the link below the video.

Capture

Transcript here

The Best News for Canadian Natgas in 5 Years?

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Canadian natural gas producers could get a 45-50% reduction in pipeline fees to move gas to central Canada from TransCanada (TRP-NYSE/TSX) on their Mainline pipeline, under a new tolling arrangement they will put to Canada’s National Energy Board.

If this goes ahead, it would have a huge (positive!) impact on western Canada’s competitiveness and profitability.

Boutique brokerage firm First Energy reported in a note to clients on June 29 that TRP is proposing a new 10-year term toll to Dawn, Ontario that would reduce Canadian Mainline/Great Lakes Gas Transmission firm service Empress-to-Dawn tolls from $1.83/GJ to $0.85-$1.10/GJ–that’s a drop of 45-50%!!

The final value would depend on the total volumes that companies were willing to commit and the minimum commitment would be 1 bcf/d.

TransCanada believes that these tolls, charged for shipments on the existing TransCanada network, would be competitive with tolls that would be charged on proposed new pipelines that would carry gas from the Marcellus shale field to the Dawn hub.

Canadian natgas producers and the pipeline companies have been discussing for years how to make WCSB gas (Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin) more competitive.  Because the WCSB is at “the end of the pipe”, i.e. farthest from end markets in populated eastern US and California–the Canadian industry has higher costs and must work together to make Canadian gas competitive.

This has become increasingly true in the last 3 years in the face of fast growing, low cost production from the mighty Marcellus in Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

Canadian natgas producers have had to reduce their price dramatically vs. US gas this year–as shown in this chart from Arc Energy last week:
near-month

 

For years, natgas in Canada was 30 cents/GJ cheaper in winter and 50 cents/GJ cheaper in summer than in the US.  But fast rising US production has more than doubled that discount recently.

TRP has not lowered tolls even though the pipeline–with 7 bcf/d of capacity–has been as low as 1.5 bcf/d at times in recent years.

My other contacts in the Canadian oilpatch say TRP is now ready to propose lower fees because two large shippers recently chose not to renew volume commitments on the Mainline.  However, two other shippers (both producers) are evidently now ready to give TRP the 1 bcf/d commitment for 10 years that TRP wants.

BACKGROUND

The Mainline is one of largest natural gas systems in the North American continent. Conceived in 1950, it began its first full year of operation in 1959 and from that year until 1998 it served central Canadian and US markets largely without any competition, operating at high load factors underpinned by long-term long-haul contracts.

The Mainline is a 14,101 km natural gas pipeline system extending from the Alberta/Saskatchewan border in the west to the Quebec/Vermont border in the east.

 

mainline

Source: National Energy Board

The Mainline is regulated by Canada’s National Energy Board (“NEB”), which regulates tolls on the pipeline to allow TransCanada to recover the costs of transporting the natural gas as well as to achieve a financial return on the investment.

The TransCanada Mainline was designed to transport 7 bcf/d of gas.  In recent years the actual volumes being processed have dropped as low as 1.5 bcf/d as shale gas from the Northeastern U.S. reduced the demand for Western Canadian natural gas. (I found it very difficult to find up-to-date data on the pipeline volumes and tolls.)

throughput

Source: National Energy Board

Because the amount of gas flowing through the pipeline dropped, the tolls paid by producers increased.  Remember, the Canadian National Energy board guaranteed that TransCanada make a reasonable return on investment.

With volumes diving, the only way for TransCanada to generate enough revenue to make that return on investment happen was to raise fees.  So that is was happened.

As volumes dove due to shale gas moving in the TransCanada Mainline toll rose sharply.

tcpl

Source: EnergyAdvantage

The chart of the TransCanada Mainline toll moved up in step with U.S. shale production growth.

In 2013 the National Energy Board–seeing that volumes weren’t going to stop dropping–froze the amount that TransCanada can charge for use of the pipeline.

That put a cap on the toll.  In early January 2015 the NEB made a couple of amendments to the toll which set it at $1.85 for delivery over from Empress to Enbridge’s Central Point Delivery System in Toronto.

AECO gas prices have actually been under that dollar amount for much of 2016.  For Western Canadian producers that is clearly a major problem–and why volumes dried up.

AECO prices were as low as 85 cents/GJ one day this spring, and for a few minutes the bid went as low as 5 cents (five) per GJ! That was mostly due to collapsing demand from the oilsands as the wildfires shut down production there for a month.

TransCanada was not available for comment.

My sources indicated that they did not expect to see a huge exodus of WCSB gas due to the new tolls, but even an extra 0.5-1.0 bcf/d would help alleviate an impending storage congestion of gas in western Canada–now already 91% full and it’s only July.  There are roughly 18 more weeks of seasonal storage injections until early November.  This chart–also from the weekly Arc Energy report–shows how high natgas storage is compared to previous years.

canadian natgas storage levels

Are These 3 Zombie Stocks Now a Buy?

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Three zombie stocks have come back from the dead in the Canadian oilpatch, and they all took a different route.

Maybe “zombie” is an unfair term, but all three had debt problems that were hurting their valuation.

And it may be an opportunity for investors paying attention, as—arguably—the  Market has yet to realize the scope of the transformation these companies have made.

1. Penn West – Now That Is A Transformation

When Penn West (PWE:NYSE; PWT-TSX) released its first quarter earnings report on May 16 investors of the company were faced with this unpleasant disclosure:

As there is the potential that the Company will not be in compliance with its financial covenants at the end of the second quarter of 2016, there is a risk of default under the Company’s bank facility and noteholder agreements. This has resulted in uncertainty on the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern.”

This zombie’s days of hopelessly wandering the earth appeared to be numbered.  The end appeared in sight.

Who would have thought that one month later Penn West would be a company with a very healthy looking future?

Certainly not me.

Penn West went with the old fashioned method for cleaning up a dirty balance sheet.  It sold an asset—one of the company’s crown jewels in fact.

They had to—it’s that simple.  It was live or die.

Penn West sold all of its Saskatchewan assets (Viking focused) to Teine Energy for $975 million.  The company supplemented that with another $140 million of Alberta asset sales.

That is over $1.1 billion and it re-shaped Penn West.

Pre-transaction Penn West’s debt to cash flow ratio was touching 12 to 1.  As context, in Canada the Market gets nervous when it’s over 2:1, though now I would say 3:1.

In the US, the Market will give you as much as 4:1 before the stock gets punished.  So that kind of leverage isn’t bad, it is outrageous.
Penn West had a debt problem at $90 oil, so you can understand why the company was in such dire straits now.

With an additional $140 million of Alberta asset sales expected before the end of the year Penn West’s debt to cash flow will be down to 1.5:1 in 2017 (assuming $55 WTI).

That would give the company not just a better balance sheet, but an excellent balance sheet.

But the cost was selling extremely high quality assets.  The price Penn West received was $71,400 per flowing barrel which was good all things considered.

Two years ago though the company could have received almost twice that valuation.  And that value is now permanently gone.

The transformation of Penn West from 2008 is absolutely stunning.
The company back then was producing nearly 200,000 boe/day.

Now, coming into 2017, production is expected to be roughly 25,000 boe/day after asset sales.  Management had to sell almost 90% of the company—and still didn’t get completely out of debt.

But the company is back from the dead.

For investors who are new to the Penn West story, this smaller company with much less leverage may be worth a closer look.  The market hasn’t yet priced in what this company is worth now that it has cleaned itself up.

2. Athabasca Oil – Cash Now; No Payments Until Oil Hits $75 

They say that necessity is the mother of invention.

There is nothing like an oil crash to give birth to some creative financing deals in the oil patch.

Athabasca Oil (ATH:TSX; ATHOF-PINK)–down from $18 to 96 cents in the last six years–just completed a unique royalty sale which improved its ability to survive through low oil prices.  It’s an intriguing solution.   Here’s how it works:

In exchange for receiving $129 million of cash Athabasca has granted a “contingent bitumen royalty” on a certain portion of its oilsands (thermal or SAGD) assets.  A royalty is like a tax that the producer will pay on barrels of production to the owner of the royalty.

The amount required to be paid under the royalty will be calculated on a sliding scale ranging from zero to 6% depending on Athabasca’s realized bitumen price.

The way the royalty is structured makes it so Athabasca doesn’t pay any royalty when oil prices are low and significantly more if oil prices are high.

The slide below breaks out the royalty percentage at various bitumen prices.

sliding scale
Athabasca pays no royalty when WTI is under $75 per barrel up to 6% if WTI exceeds $157.

Burgess Energy Holdings—the royalty buyer—obviously thinks oil prices are going a lot higher over time—because if WTI is under $75 Athabasca doesn’t have to pay a dime.

Athabasca believes that the royalty will impact its cash flows from this 12,000 boe/day of thermal production at various oil prices as follows:

netback examples

For a lot of cash up front Athabasca isn’t giving away anything unless oil goes a lot higher.  This seems like a great trade of upside that might be available if oil prices soar for a considerable cash infusion today.

The worst case scenario is that while Athabasca makes a lot of money at high oil prices shareholders have to complain that it should be making even more money.

The royalty doesn’t apply to any production expansion beyond the 12,000 barrels of production that are attached to the deal.

After completing this deal Athabasca is sitting with a net cash balance of $85 million and has no worries about riding out oil prices staying lower for longer.

3. Birchcliff Energy – You Can Actually Deleverage Through Acquisition

It is natural to think that a company faced with too much debt is going to be a seller of assets.

That isn’t always the case.

Birchcliff Energy (BIR:TSX; BIREF-PINK) just “acquired” its way to a much improved balance sheet.

Birchcliff is very well respected as a low-cost natural gas producer.

The company has roughly 40,000 boe/day of production in western Canada.  They own the infrastructure (pipelines, gas processing) tied to this production so they don’t pay expensive third party processing fees.

Controlling that infrastructure is great. Building that infrastructure was expensive.
A lot of the money spent on that infrastructure came from debt and it (and brutally low gas prices) left Birchcliff’s balance sheet stretched.

At a debt to cash flow ratio of 8:1 Birchcliff’s low cost advantage had become overshadowed by its debt.

Last week Birchcliff addressed its debt problem head-on.

The company announced that it is buying the Gordondale asset from Encana(ECA-NYSE/TSX).  This asset produces 25,000 boepd (59% natural gas, 15% light crude oil and 26% NGLs).

gordondale

In one fell swoop the company is getting 50% bigger.

Birchcliff will go from $100-$110 million in cash flow this year to $250-$280 million in 2017 if strip pricing holds up (the nat gas 2017 strip looks is considerably higher than where we are today).

The purchase price for this is $625 million and the vast majority of the cash will come from a $548 million equity issuance at $6.25 per share.

Following the transaction Birchcliff expects to have slightly higher debt (up $75 million to $675 million) but much higher cash flows.  With the mid-range of 2017 cash flows being $265 million this deal brings Birchcliff’s debt down from a frightening 8:1 cash flow to a much more manageable 2.5:1.

Perhaps even more important is that the additional cash flow will likely get Birchcliff a bigger operating line of credit increased.  The company was 84% drawn on its $750 million line and the Street hates companies that get down to little liquidity—especially an unhedged producer like Birchcliff.

When you have very little liquidity it doesn’t take much of a cash flow turn for the worse to create a catastrophic cash crunch.

This deal deleverages the company, adds liquidity and even comes at a reasonable price at roughly 6x trailing cash flow, but closer to 4 times cash flow at 2017 strip pricing.

When The Uninvestable Become Investable

When transformative transactions like these take place it takes a while for the Street to fully digest what has happened.

Investors have stayed away from all three of these names due to concerns over leverage, liquidity and low commodity prices.

Each of them gave away something in their respective deals, but these stocks can be great trades given that they bring certain long term survival for these companies.

While the Street may not value re-born zombies the same as market leaders, they could get re-priced as the healthy businesses they now are.

Editors Note—I like to buy best-of-breed companies that don’t need to dilute at the bottom of the cycle.  I’m very excited about the upcoming drill program for my #1 Oil Stock—they’re right beside an 850 million barrel MONSTER deposit…IMHO, it’s a gimme…Get The Growth!  For trading symbol, Click HERE.

 

 

How To Profit from Brexit Now [2016’s Greatest Buy Opportunity]

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The Brexit side has won.  The British people, the nation (not the politicians) have voted to leave the European Union, and become as Norway and Switzerland are—in Europe but out of the EU.

This is not a binding vote; it’s only a referendum.  And it was a very narrow margin—basically 52/48—but that matters not to stock markets around the world for the next few days.

But there could easily be some BIG opportunity for oil investors, both short and long term.

First off, please understand that even though the fundamentals of Britain leaving the EU might not be much, stock markets run on emotion—now more than ever.

Thanks to years of Quantitative Easing, low to no interest rates and essentially free commissions on stock trading—there is an incredible amount of dumb money in the Market that the pros can take advantage of in times of extreme emotion like this.

So the next few days will be VERY volatile.  Last night, Brent and WTI prices plummeted down $3/b, or 6%.  That means the stocks of producers are down 3-8% today, and this could be a 3 day, short term routing.

Oil bulls are about to have all their theories/theses tested in the next week.  If the fundamentals of this oil market are as strong as they think, by Wednesday morning the oil price should stabilize above $44/b.

If oil closes on Friday in North America down less than the $3/b it originally plummeted to right after the vote results are known–(WTI over $47/b, Brent over $47.90) I would suggest that is very bullish for oil.

Despite that, for the junior producers, the risk-off sentiment in the market will reign for awhile, and I expect their charts to fall and have to recalibrate/recycle, even if oil prices hold above $44/b next week. That $44/b is my technical line in the sand for oil.

Fundamentally, Britain leaving the EU would have no impact on world oil demand.  But because so much of the oil price is derivative-based; driven by the financial side of the industry, the impacts of this loss will be emotionally huge and therefore large on equities—and ETFs.

What would my long term strategy be for the next few days?  Buy more of my #1 Oil Stock, maybe the only junior producer who can double production in the next 3-5 years at $45-$50 oil.  You buy quality at cheap prices in these extreme panics. But when should I buy it?

It’s really important to remember that the trading prices and volumes of these stocks mean nothing Friday, and realistically Monday.  Margin clerks will be doing their job selling out overlevered accounts who bet wrong.

Trends never end on a Friday; that’s why Tuesday is called TurnAround Tuesday.

So if I think I’m going to buy an ETF for some short term gain out of this Brexit panic—or even Parex for long term gains–I’m realistically NOT buying anything on Friday.  I’m looking to late Monday-earlyTuesday (like, within the first hour of tradingTuesday; no later) to buy two ETFs—BNO and XIV, both listed NYSE.

BNO-NYSE tracks the Brent price.  It is not a levered ETF.  The contango, which should get a lot steeper the lower Brent goes in the next few days—will be a headwind for the ETF share price, but if the oil bulls are right this should be a great 3 day trade sometime Monday.

The XIV is the reverse volatility index; it trades opposite to the VIX index; the Fear Index.  As soon as the Market figures out that Brexit is not a big deal (no idea on that timing) the XIV will soar.

On any of these trades I will have a very tight 10% stop loss—because no one has any idea if Brexit will cause a bear market.  Analysts can say all they want about fundamentals, but when fear takes over a market it can stay lower for longer, just like oil.

I’m not afraid of a bear market this time—the largest position by far in my portfolio is a defensive, debt-free downstream dividend payer that has a low payout ratio. They have increased dividends TWICE already this year. I have some cash to buy more if it gets down to a 10% yield.

I have some gold stocks in Agnico Eagle and a couple juniors my Subscriber Investment Summit partners have put me into.

And my oldest daughter is dancing in England for the next three years.  That tuition fee just got a lot cheaper overnight.

So you see, there is profit in everything that happens.  You just have to know where to look.

Profit from Brexit with my #1 Oil Stock–this is one of the rare times you can buy high quality and low prices.

CLICK HERE to get the symbol on this stock!

-Keith

This is What Happens if Producers Only Spend Cash Flow (Hint: Bullish)

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How quickly could US shale production grow again if the oil price keeps rising?

I suggest there has been a fundamental change—a bullish change—that will prevent US oil production from rising quickly. It certainly won’t grow as fast as it did from 2010-2015.
That’s because

  1. US production was able to grow so fast only because the industry massively outspent cash flow using debt and equity.
  2. By the industry’s own numbers, US shale oil production is not very profitable, and will have a hard time generating enough cash flow to grow at all.

If producers can’t use external debt or equity to grow; if they can’t use any money to drill a well except their own internally generated cash flow—then they may not be able to grow at all.

The numbers show growth was only possible by massively outspending cash flow—and going forward access to all of that easy money is gone.

Three Shale Focused Producers – Three Big Spenders

The Bakken is the Granddaddy of the shale oil plays.  The companies operating here have had a decade to perfect their techniques and turn shale production into something of value for shareholders.

I spent some time going through all of the 10-k (annual financial) filings for Continental Resources (NYSE:CLR), Whiting Petroleum (NYSE:WLL) and Oasis Petroleum (NYSE:OAS).

I’ve laid out my findings below because I haven’t ever seen it recapped in this manner for investors to see.

The graph for each company represents how much capital spending for each company exceeded cash generated from operations for the period 2010-2015. The table that follow each graph lays out the data.

1

1a 

2


  2a

 3

 3a

From 2010 through 2015 these three companies have outspent cash flow by a combined $13.8 billion.

Combined cash flow from operations for these companies was $21.6 billion and total capital spending was $35.4 billion.  They outspent cash flow by a companied 163%.

The incredible thing is that I excluded cash spent on acquisitions from those spending numbers.  With that included the cash outflow was even larger.

Hey, give me $13 billion dollars and I bet I can make some oil come out of the ground too!

But What About All Of That Production Growth….

The justification for outspending cash flow by billions and billions of dollars is that the production growth it generated was worth it.

But was it really?

The slide below is from Continental’s most recent corporate presentation.  In this slide the company brags about having the industry leading recycle ratio.

A recycle ratio is the cash flow from producing a barrel of oil (equivalent) divided by the cost of getting that barrel out of the ground.  If that ratio is 1.0 it means that the production is breaking even.  If it is below 1.0 the companies are losing money.

4

In the 1980s a Canadian golfer named Dan Halldorson was told that he was Canada’s greatest golfer.  To which Halldorson—who has since passed away—replied  (very politically incorrectly) “isn’t that kind of like being the tallest midget?”.

My point is that a recycle ratio of 1 isn’t something to brag about.  It is a depressing number.  According to the slide, the rest of its competitors are even worse.

Continental’s recycle ratio for 2015 is roughly 1.0.  The peer range goes from there down to 0.5.

And the financial performance is actually worse than the recycle ratio alone would make it seem.  The recycle ratio does not factor in the interest expense that these companies incur on their debt or the general and administrative expense of running their companies or any taxes they pay.

In 2015—says Continental with this recycle ratio slide—all of these shale producers were losing money producing oil including Continental.

Imagine, all of those billions and billions of dollars borrowed and raised through equity issuances to grow production as fast as possible—to then lose money producing those barrels.

Consider some basic math if these companies had to live within cash flow. That would have meant $13.8 billion less spent drilling wells.

If an average Bakken well cost $9.8 million (2014 cost) having spent $13.8 billion less would have eliminated 1,408 producing wells.  Assume that each well is producing 300 barrels of oil per day (an average Bakken well over the first 6 months) and 422,400 barrels per day of production is gone—from just three companies.

If just three companies spent within cash flow, US peak oil production would have been roughly 422,400 bopd lower.  That is a stunning figure. And I think it’s very very bullish.

It’s also very simplistic and possibly not very accurate, but you get my point.  The production growth from shale would have been a fraction of what it was if these companies hadn’t had access to easy money and foolishly generous capital markets.

Investor sentiment today isn’t going to allow these companies to increase their debt quickly if at all.  That means the oil price will have to rise a lot, with service costs staying at these low levels, for US production to increase.  This industry is now going to be forced to figure out how to become a lot more profitable.

Keith Schaefer

How to Invest in Energy–for the Long Term

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Whenever I can, I invest for the long term.

The reality is, oil and gas and ethanol markets are not only cyclical, but volatile within cycles.

So when I find a company that is

a)      Debt free
b)     Can be so profitable it can increase its dividend TWICE in 2016 so far
c)      Gives me exposure to not only traditional energy, but renewables

During a time of low energy prices…I buy it BIG.

I literally just bought more stock this week, in my 20 year old son’s retirement account.

With the benefit of compound interest and re-investing dividends, I know my son will be set up financially for life with this stock.

I’m taking a lot of the short term profits I’ve made in 2016 (over $20,000 a month so far) and buying this stock…again and again.

Learn how I’m setting up my early retirement, and helping my family prosper early in life….Click Here.