Bloomburg analyst says BP good value at 410p (he can't see 'em going much lower) and, according to him, Shell are 10% cheaper (372p)and even better value. Recommends buying Shell.
He also added - Oils lost ground because they're defensive and money is going into techs. Now the time to pick up a bargain. Yield of 4.1%. 370p ought to offer support chartwise?

Interesting article in the FT....

Over the past few months, Saudi Arabia has on several occasions sought to ease high oil prices, saying it intends to lift its production capacity by another 2m barrels a day to 12.5m b/d within the next five years, and possibly as high as 15m b/d if strong demand persists.

But its pledge was greeted sceptically by oil traders and prices were only briefly affected.

The investment in drilling rigs is the first concrete evidence that the kingdom has identified a shift in the oil markets towards sustained higher prices.

One oil executive, who works in the region, said: [Saudi Aramco] has changed its attitude a lot in the past six months; it is more confident that oil demand and oil prices are going to remain high.

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/276e0d76-7c67-11d9-8992-00000e2511c8.html

Also lady on Bloomberg believes oil will increase in value in real terms (i.e. not just US dollar price)

I'd considered taking profits on my shell and total shares but i think i'll now keep'm.

"Oil giant BP lost 5p to 552.5p after CSFB downgraded its recommendation on the stock to neutral from outperform.

CSFB explained the downgrade was partly due to the fact that the stock trading is within 1% of its 570p target and also due to the likelihood of technical factors surrounding the Royal Dutch/Shell restructuring weighing on the shares."

The big boys are short of SHEL stock apparently. It'll be worth watching for overperformance against BP. and Total.SA - I might switch to Total if Shell continues to outperform.
Any other oil favorites out here?

Bb, I still have shell to go over 500 pretty soon.

Hi folks, forgive my ignorance as not being a trader as such. Just a quick question to any one prepared to answer.

When trading for serious short term gains, how does the spread come into play. For example I hear of a tight-spread, or a large-spread etc, but is it an inication of a good time to purchase? Essentially what does it indicate?

Thank you

LP, spread is more of an indications of how liquid a share is, for ftse stocks its almost always fairly small about shell is normally about .25 p, for some illiquid shares it can be a large percentage. In my opinion it does not say much about wheteher a share is worth buying although there are patterns with some shares where the spread tightens at certain times, I do not use them as indicators (but then I dont use many indicators).

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,2718-1511236,00.html

March 05, 2005

Can Shell's Canadian sands yield more oil than the Saudi deserts?
By Carl Mortished
Transforming black sand into oil is costly and dirty, but there is plenty of itabout.

Altogether, we have 10 billion barrels of oil in place, with 6 billion recoverable, Camarta says. That would give us 30 years production at 500,000 barrels per day. To get there, Shell needs to invest a further C$12 billion in three phases over the next decade.....

....Shell has cut back the cost of producing a barrel of synthetic crude to C$18 and its upgrader plant in Edmonton transforms carbon-heavy bitumen into a light, sulphur-free crude that sells at a $2 premium to the US crude benchmark price.....