Coverage universe

Initially I’m going to start with 25 companies broken down into four categories.  All of these 25 companies are all US domiciled and listed.  The groups are as follows:

Geographically diversified large caps (about $20b or larger market cap):

OXY, EOG, APA, APC, DVN, NBL, MRO, CHK, HES.

Permian Basin focused companies (about $5b or larger):

PXD, CXO, EGN, LPI, XEC

Bakken Focused:

CLR, WLL, KOG, OAS, NOG

Marcellus Focused:
RRC, SWN, COG, EQT, UPL, AR

I plan to add other companies later, most likely the larger Canadian E&Ps, and perhaps international, or smaller cap US.  The reason for dividing them up into groups is that it allows us to compare the companies in several different ways.  Does it seem that one particular company is undervalued vs its regional peers?  Does it seem that one entire region may be undervalued?  I’m going to start by going into the three areas where there are a number of pure-play companies.  These regions are the Bakken play in North Dakota, which just surpassed 1 million barrels per day of oil production;  The Permian Basin of West Texas is a massive area that has produced conventional oil for decades, and now is the target of more capital expenditure than any other region in the US if not the world; the third is the Marcellus/Utica region, which has the lowest cost natural gas production, for a resource of its size, of any area of the continental US.  There are certainly other significant regions: the Eagleford is the fastest growing play with the largest production of tight-oil.  The Barnett and Haynesville plays are also significant shale gas regions.  There just aren’t enough companies that are purely focused on these areas to have a group of publicly traded peers that can be compared.