Royal Dutch Shell (RDS-B)

Royal Dutch Shell is, by revenue, the second largest oil company only behind Exxon Mobil. Royal Dutch Shell runs the popular Shell gasoline stations. Royal Dutch Shell already has a contract with the U.S. Government to extract deep sea oil in the Gulf of Mexico. Royal Dutch Shell is now looking to make another contract with the U.S. Government to extract the Oil Shale reserve that is in the Colorado/Utah area. The U.S. Government owns about 75% of the Oil Shale in the world. This reserve holds more oil than any Middle East country alone. If you have heard of Oil Sands and Suncor, this is even better because Oil Shale yields more than twice as much oil per ton. Royal Dutch Shell is at the forefront of In-Situ methods of extracting Oil Shale. Royal Dutch Shell has 20 years of research that designed their method. This method uses many wires that conduct electricity and use a large amount of heat to make the selected area's land temperature to thousands of degrees to speed up the process of Oil Shale to be converted into traditional oil that can be pumped out of the ground. The downsides to this method is that it requires several years of heating to finally convert the Oil Shale and a "Freeze Wall" must be put up to contain the heat in the selected area.

its oil, nuf said

Oil will be back, and RDSA is in terms of valorisation very cheap.

Everyone needs gas!

low P/E Ratio 7.02

The economic recovery will be anemic and probably W-shaped, forcing the oil and gas inventories to continue stock piling. Any short term strength in oil prices will be supported by a flight from a weakening dollar, not from fundamental supply/demand economics. The oil price will again fall (albeit how much is up for debate) hurting yet another quarter of company profits. I predict this will be a trend for Q4 2009 until Q2 or Q3 of 2010. After this unstable period of time, I would bet that supply/ demand economics will function correctly and oil prices will be reflective of thier true price and not due to the inherent instability of investor speculation.

Deep water drilling is becoming more and more accurate and productive... consider Shell to profit regardless.

In an uncertain investing climate, RDS makes money and pays a dividend. Two things that are becoming increasingly uncommon. Their recent raise of 5% to the dividend is reassuring, I hope it's based on strength and not bravado.

Oil shale is a low grade crude that needs to be mixed with higher grade oil to make synthetic crude. Also the amount of energy used to get a barrel is enourmous. They have to also use about a 3 to 1 ratio in potable water to extract the oil. Potable water better used to supply water starved ares.
Shell is running out of oil, they have been, and have no new inventories, even after scurrying to buy every possible oil field avaliable.

BTW, Oil shale is only worth it when prices are way higher than this. Plus it cant be sold as Sweet or Brent Crude.
Oil from oil sands is like turning gold to lead.

We still need oil for the foreseeable future.

see rds-a

Gas prices are going through the roof.

with the oil prices going up, the dollar getting weaker and the situation in the middle east remains unstable, i think that the big oil companies will outerperform in this time frame.

strong value, like all stocks beat down in the contraction, but we'll always need oil and has a hi dividend

We are still deoendent on Oil

Getting killed along with oil, but that 7% dividend is very nice, and with a P/E of 3 whether that be real or not real earnings is still cheap. It's trading near book, and no matter what Oil will always be a huge part of our world, if it becomes a lesser they are protected by alternative investments

My favorite place to buy gas. I actually think their gas is good for my car. If it would only come down in price a few dollars per gallon!

always the watch dog that knows its bark

Shell is a dinosaur. It lacks the access to resources of the National Oil Companies and cannot compete with the cost structure of the independents. The National Oil Companies don't need the Shells anymore to develop their fields, they just call Halliburton or Schlumberger. The majority of Shell income still comes from fields discovered decades ago. Furthermore Shell's internal structures make it less entrepreneurial and nimble than its competitors..........