Saturday, June 28, 2008

Weekend Beach Reading: June 28, 2008


American Superconductor (AMSC-$37.00) won a $450 million order for core electrical components from Beijing’s Sinovel Wind. The parts will be used in Sinovel’s 1.5-megawatt and three megawatt wind turbines, totaling approximately 10 gigawatts of wind power capacity, according to Greg Yurek, American’s founder and CEO. Nonetheless, this purchase order does not change the company’s weak operating dynamics.

Atwood Oceanics ($ATW-$120.03)
announced a new contract for its moored semisubmersible rig "Atwood Hunter," which can operate at water depths up to 5,000 feet and drill down to approximately 28,000 feet, commencing in Sept. 2008, for a four-year term with Kosmos Energy and Noble Energy to pursue deepwater drilling opportunities offshore West Africa. Given record prices in the contract of $511,000 to $545,000, Atwood will likely exercise an option with Jurong Shipyard to begin construction on a $590 million floater before a looming June 30 deadline.

Flooding in the Midwest and
rising corn costs adversely impact the profitability at Aventine Renewable Energy Holdings (AVR-$4.74), a leading distributor and producer of fuel-grade ethanol.

Will financial irregularities-topple wind turbine and tower maker BroadWing Energy (BWEN-$21.60).

Clean Energy Fuels (CLNE-$11.00), the largest provider of compressed and liquefied natural gas for alternative-fuel vehicles in North America,
is an attractive alternative to ethanol as a renewable energy resource.

Do as I say, not as I do at Credo Petroleum (CRED-$13.63).

A
balance sheet overburdened by debt constrains the ability of power merchant Dynegy (DYN-$8.44) to expand its expansion strategy.

Will
expansion of world tanker fleet capacity expose General Maritime’s (GMR-$26.44) to significant decline in day-rate pricing when Lukoil’s charter contracts begin to expire come 2010?

Occidental Petroleum (OXY-$88.02) is acquiring 15 percent of the multibillion-dollar Joslyn oil sands project in northern Alberta. But
the move may not be a prudent means of adding to its slowing oil/gas reserves growth rates. Despite the current price of oil, are the economics sufficiently more attractive now to warrant Occidental’s return to an area it abandoned in 2000?

At seismic driller OMNI Energy (OMNI-$6.46),
it's all in the numbers.

SunPower (SPWR-$75.71)
frequently negotiates solar services agreements that allow customers to limit the purchase to just the electricity generated — not the solar-power systems themselves. Shifting financing obligations may accelerate sales of its solar-electric systems, but is the company digging deeper into financial uncertainty?

Synthesis Energy Systems (SYMX-$9.17), which operates integrated coal-to-methanol gasification plants,
completed a $93 million equity offering to finance its 50 percent joint interest in the Golden Concord project, a 100-megawatt gasification plant under construction in Inner Mongolia, which the company expects to come online in the first half of 2010. How attractive are the potential returns from capital invested in these facilities?

Zoltek Companies (ZOLT-$24.81), a producer of parts for wind turbines,
faces an investigation into accounting irregularities that could have serious implications for its business.

Editor David J. Phillips does not hold a financial interest in any stocks mentioned in this article. The 10Q Detective has a Full Disclosure Policy.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

David, I love the site. I'm astonished at your ability to find incisive, relevant quotations from either classical literature or pop culture.

You have a spelling/usage error: It's BroadWIND energy, not BroadBAND energy as you wrote above.

David J. Phillips said...

I appreciate both the praise & the edit error find! Thank you--fixed it! Doesn't change the spots on that dog, though :)