Topic: How To Invest

Hi Pat: Love the info you provide on all the companies. Can I have your thoughts about Baytex Energy for holding as a dividend stock? Thanks.

Article Excerpt

Baytex Energy, $42.34, symbol BTE on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 124.9 million; Market cap: $5.3 billion; www.baytex.ab.ca), produces oil and gas in Western Canada and the U.S. Until recently, Baytex was focused on heavy oil, which added risk. That’s because extracting the tar-like bitumen from oil sands is much more expensive than conventional oil wells. However, new technologies, such as steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD), have lowered the industry’s costs. SAGD systems inject steam into the ground to melt the bitumen, making it easier to pump to the surface. The company just bought Australia’s Aurora Oil & Gas, which has big shale oil holdings in Texas’s Eagle Ford area, for $2.6 billion. Aurora produces 24,678 barrels of oil equivalent a day, while Baytex averaged 57,100 barrels a day in 2013. The stock trades at 7.8 times Baytex’s forecast 2014 cash flow per share of $5.45 (which factors in the Aurora purchase). It yields 6.2%. Baytex is okay to hold. …