Two top U.S. oil and gas buys

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DEVON ENERGY CORP. $78.50 (New York symbol DVN; TSINetwork Rating: Speculative) (405-235- 3611; www.dvn.com; Shares outstanding: 407.9 million; Market cap: $31.9 billion; Dividend yield: 1.2%) is one of the largest U.S.-based oil and natural gas explorers and producers. Its production mix is 53% gas and 47% oil. In 2011, Devon sold all of its international and Gulf of Mexico properties, which it saw as risky and expensive to develop. The company is narrowing its focus even further with its recent agreement to sell some of its properties to Linn Energy LLC for $2.3 billion. The sale includes Devon’s holdings in the Rockies, the onshore Gulf Coast and the Mid-Continent region (which includes Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas). The sale will let Devon focus on what it views as low-risk/high-reward properties, especially the oilproducing assets it bought in Texas’s Eagle Ford shale formation for $6 billion last year. As well, 80% of the production from the properties Devon sold is natural gas,…