On November 28, 2017, the old Consol Energy Inc. split into two, separately traded, public companies. While one firm mines coal, the other produces natural gas.

Under the terms for the spinoff, Consol shareholders received one share of the coal company (which kept the Consol Energy name) for every eight shares they held in the old Consol Energy. The remaining company now operates as CNX Resources.

CNX RESOURCES $15 (New York symbol CNX; Resources sector; Shares outstanding: 230.1 million; Market cap: $3.4 billion; Takeover Target Rating: Medium; No dividends; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk; www.cnx.com) is a natural gas producer operating in the Appalachian region of the eastern U.S.

The company holds natural gas assets consisting of over four million acres of land, with almost 13,000 producing wells and over 6.3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves. That includes 4.5 trillion from the Marcellus and Utica shale basins.

Those high-quality shale holdings should let CNX continue to report rising production and reserves. The company likely spent between $620 million and $645 million on exploration and development in 2017. That investment should help it increase production for 2018 by 30%.

The higher output should also let CNX boost exploration spending to between $790 million and $880 million for 2018. It plans to drill 75 wells, with 60 in the Marcellus shale region of Pennsylvania and West Virginia and 15 in the Utica shale of Pennsylvania and Ohio. CNX also plans to continue to buy back shares.

CNX Resources is a buy. 

CONSOL ENERGY $36 (New York symbol CEIX; Resources sector; Shares o/s: 28.1 million; Market cap: $1.0 billion; Takeover Target Rating: Highest; No divd.; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk; www.consolenergy.com) produces both thermal coal for rail-served power plants in the eastern U.S. as well as metallurgical coal for shipping by ocean to domestic and international steelmakers.

The company owns 75% of the Pennsylvania Mining Complex, the largest underground thermal and metallurgical coal-mining operation in North America.

Consol also owns the Baltimore Maritime terminal, one of only two on the Eastern Seaboard with the ability to serve the largest ocean-going ships in the world. It’s also the only one served by two rail lines—Norfolk Southern and CSX Transportation.

The company owns roughly 1.6 billion tons of both thermal and metallurgical coal reserves in the eastern U.S.

Thermal coal for electricity generation is the least loved major commodity because of the high emissions it produces when burned. Still, it remains a key part of U.S. power generation. Consol’s top 15 power plant customers are all well established firms and account for 82% of its thermal coal shipments. All 15 plants are equipped with state-of-theart emission controls, including scrubbers. None has announced plans to close. What’s more, the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has supported the thermal coal industry.

Consol Energy’s sound balance sheet and low $1.0 billion market cap makes it an easily affordable acquisition.

Consol Energy rates Highest in our Takeover Target Rating. It’s a buy for aggressive investors.