RE:RE:NG pricing is KILLING POU......"I like the way you described NG as cheap yet valuable."
I think is a fairly, accurate assessment of the commodity as well. Cheap because it was rendered to this point, not by an act of God or the false assumption of "warm winters lol" but rather by the powers the be, that control the world's paper markets to accomplish TWO very critical objectives. To starve Russia of financially resources and their ability to fund their war AND to save Europe! If NG prices would have stayed at $10 or above $6 for any prolonged period, then it would have been the Beginning of the End of ALL of Europe. Most people here are NOT aware that even though ng is only a mere $3 bucks & some change at HH........The Europeans pay a much much MUCH higher premium that that! Almost 5-10X as much depending on certain factors. And i hope folks understand tihs very important fact.....
"As far as POU being a small fish, that may be true."
It is indeed....i don't "make things up" here. Almost everything i state, aside from some "opinions" (which most of the time even those are based on something credible!), are based on facts, numbers & figures. So i f you're not convinced that Paramount is "indeed" a small fish in a very large pond, then just take these following "figures" for example.
If you look at the BIG 3 in Canada, excluding Imperial which a division, extension of Exxon really. Then what you have left are, Canadian UnNatural at ~$110B, Suncor at ~$90B and Cenovus at ~$65B. All in Canadian loonies of course. Everything else after those three is large drop off in SIZE * SCOPE and big difference inbetween them. Because the next in line after Cenovus is the fairly new Tourmaline, at about $30B cdn. I would say that the rest, or about 75% of the remaining Canadian operators, are about $1B-$3B. In other words, its a very fractured, fragmented industry up there in Canada, compared to the US.
A small operator here in the US or a mid cap, is probably equivalent to a large cap in Canada. If you take Canadian UnNatural for exmaple, the biggest in Canada % probably the most recognised Canadian operator in North America, then they would probably rank probably far behind someone like BP at $200B cdn (yes BP is British but just to show you the large disrepancy). The big US 4, are like many more times the size of CNQ, with the smallest one of them being more than twice the size. So yeah......big big diffference and the Canadians have to "fix" this rather "siginifcant" disprepancy fast with some M&A or get lost in the wide, deep ocean........
But ARC which is about 4x the size of POU, MV wise, is rumored to be a takover target based on the Reuters article.
Arc beign taken out? Hmm....don't know about that. In the past when the Americans, Chines & Europeans were are all rushing & scouring around for deal it may have likely or very possible. Today? Highly unlikely because all those potential suitors with very deep pockets and ability ot do such deals are completely gone.....out of the picutre. So what you have left are ONLY Canadian operators buying each out or merging with one another. And the only entities that buyout such a big operators, big by Kanuck standards that is, is Canadian UnNatural, Cenovus, Suncor abd MAYBE Tourmaline......maybe.
Out of those 4, Suncor is out because they are solely an Oil Sands operator & they will stay that way so there's interest for them to look at Arc. For Tourmaline, it would be i think a bit too much to buyout totally. Mabye a merger between the two is possible, but inho highly unlikely for other factors such corporate culture and going against the company's policy of buying CHEAP assets. So in the end, you have CNQ & CVE. Canadian UnNatural like Tourmaline, DO NOT overpay for assets. That's is how both CNQ & TOU have bulit up their empires, on the backs of CHEAP acuisitions. And ARC isn't cheap....
So no i do not think anyone will be buying out Arc. More likely that ARC is on the prowl & hunt to buy someone out themselves, and the have the ability & funds to do so quite easily. And there ARE quite a few "interesting" targets to look at in their scope of influence or area.
So my predictions are the following. No one buys Arc, they stay independent, and they likely make a cheap acquisition by year end or at the lastest mid 2024. Their last purchase, was a fairly large producer by Canadian standards, the condy & ngl heavy Seven Generations, where their stock price was battered into the ground. So Arc's Mo is a large producer, probably 50k boepd or higher, probably in the Monteny region, who's stock has been decimated to VERY attractive valuations AND isn't expensive. Now who fits that profile? Birchcliff is one for sure....so look for Bir to enter O&G heaven sometime in 2024.
As for Paramount, they have a few paths they can take, and lisited them in my previous posts. The quickest & easiest of all the options, without ANY hiccups, is a merger between them & Nuvista. Easy a apple pie.....the low hanging fruit i was talking about. If that's not doable, for whatever reason, then they have a few othe targets they can look at, Birchcliff being one here again, but after that nothing else is CHEAP. Kelt looks interesting when it was around $5 bucks, but at $8 cdn now, it's less interesting & not cheap anymore. But if oil pirces remain at these levels for a year or two, you can probably justify & SELL the acquistion to s/h.... no problem.
GLTA