Earlier this morning, the Stockpickr staff announced on TheStreet.com that it had reviewed the stock portfolio of legendary oilman T. Boone Pickens, Jr. They said:

Recently, noted oil investor T. Boone Pickens announced that he expects prices to reach $150 this year. Maybe it’s time to take a closer look at the stocks that he owns.

Pickens was the highest-paid hedge fund manager for 2005, earning $1.4 billion and providing a return of about 300% for the investors in his fund, BP Capital.

Stockpickr has reviewed the stocks that he owns and developed a portfolio of the top T. Boone Pickens stocks.

The Stockpickr staff invited readers to view the top stocks belonging to the “Oracle of Oil.” You can access this information here.

Source:

“Portfolio Spotlight: T. Boone Pickens”
Stockpickr Staff
TheStreet.com, June 11, 2008

Responding to news that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the watchdog for U.S. commodity transactions, was investigating for possible oil price manipulation, legendary oil investor T. Boone Pickens, Jr., said in interviews yesterday at an American Wind Energy Association conference in Houston that:

There’s nothing to it to start with. That’s not what’s happened. You have 85 million barrels a day of oil available in the global energy market and 86.4 million barrels a day of demand. So the price of oil is going to go up until you can kill demand.

The CFTC’s actions can be attributed to “trying to find a scapegoat and place blame for it when what you have is demand that is greater than supply,” according to Pickens. The famous oilman explained:

You’ve got to have a commodity market, because a producer has to have an opportunity to hedge when they feel like the risk is becoming too great for them. For every hedger, you have to have a speculator.

On Monday, the founder and chairman of Dallas-based BP Capital LLC confirmed his earlier forecast that crude oil will reach $150 a barrel this year. He said:

We’re using 400,000 barrels of oil less today than we did a year ago, but the Chinese are now using 500,000 barrels greater than they did last year. So whatever we kill in the way of demand, they pick up in their demand. You’re gong to bid for the oil, and the highest bidder’s going to get the oil until you finally kill demand with price.

Source:

“Pickens Says CFTC Probe of Oil a ‘Waste of Time’ (Update1)”
Margot Habiby, Edward Klump
Bloomberg, June 3, 2008

Here’s an interesting story I came across this morning. Yesterday, Fortune’s Todd Woody wrote about legendary oilman T. Boone Pickens, Jr., who talked to the magazine’s staff about none other than— Yahoo. Woody wrote:

The billionaire oilman has bought 10 million Yahoo shares and is backing Carl Icahn’s bid to oust the Internet company’s board in the aftermath of the failed (so far) deal with Microsoft.

“I’m just coat-tailing Carl on that,” said Pickens, who celebrated his 80th birthday last Thursday. He said he had not discussed Yahoo with Icahn before buying up Yahoo stock. “I didn’t talk to Carl. Hell, I can’t even write an e-mail,” said Pickens.

“I’m not even sure what Yahoo does,” he added.

Blind faith? With a net worth of $14 billion, Icahn IS the 46th richest man in the world. Woody added:

According to Pickens, after Microsoft walked away from its $47.5 billion bid on May 3, he called his office and asked what Yahoo was trading for. “When they said around $21, I said buy 1 million shares but they misheard me and bought 10 million,” he said, pausing a beat before cracking a smile.

As Yahoo (YHOO) is trading a little over $27 a share this morning, Pickens can afford to smile…

Source:

“T. Boone Pickens on Yahoo”
Todd Woody
Fortune (on CNN Money), May 27, 2008

The “Oracle of Oil,” T. Boone Pickens, Jr, appeared on CNBC today, and said that he expected the price of oil to keep rising. Pickens predicted that crude oil will reach $150 a barrel this year, and insisted that speculators weren’t to blame. The chairman and CEO of BP Capital was in Dallas this morning, and had this to say about his outlook on oil prices:

They’re going up. They’re going to go up because the people that have the oil want it to go up. And they’re running out of oil. Eighty-five million barrels of oil a day is all the world can produce, and the demand is 87 million. And it’s that simple. It doesn’t have anything to do with the value of the dollar. It’s just a fact of supply and demand. That’s it.

When asked about his views on peak oil, Pickens said:

You’re not running out of oil. You have oil. But, you can’t get it above 85 million. The Russians are starting to decline now. The Saudis claim they have more oil, they don’t… They can’t give any more oil. They’re giving all the oil they can. They’re stacking up the money as fast as they can stack it up.

The famous energy investor told viewers that the United States needs to get another fuel that is going to take the place of oil. Pickens said natural gas is the only American resource that can reduce oil imports, and claims that its effective use could lead to a 40% reduction in imports.

The veteran oilman also confirmed with CNBC that at the present time he was long on both oil and natural gas prices.

The 8 minute 18 second interview can be accessed here.

Source:

“Pickens: Oil Going to $150, So Move to Gas”
CNBC, May 20, 2008

Back on April 18 I mentioned that Jim Landers of the Dallas Morning News was reporting that legendary energy investor T. Boone Pickens, Jr., was planning to execute contracts as early as the following week for $1.5 billion of wind turbines for his massive wind energy project in North Texas. Today, Reuters confirmed that Pickens’ Mesa Power LLP placed a $2 billion order for 667 wind turbines with General Electric to build the world’s largest wind farm. According to Reuters’ Scott DiSavino, the farm will produce 1,000 megawatts of electricity, enough to power about 300,000 homes. By 2014, Pickens wants the project to have the capacity for generating 4,000 megawatts of wind energy. DiSavino noted that Mesa Power intends to announce the deal later today.

Source:

“T. Boone Pickens orders 667 GE wind turbines: report”
Scott DiSavino
Reuters, May 15, 2008

T. Boone Pickens, Jr., the “Oracle of Oil,” talked to Bloomberg’s Rhonda Schaffler yesterday, and said the price of crude oil may rise to $125 to $150 a barrel later in 2008, while the potential Brazilian discovery would not make much of an impact on the market. The billionaire energy investor appeared on Bloomberg Television and said:

The second half of the year I think you’ll be back up substantially above where you are now.

Last Wednesday, Pickens told an audience at Oklahoma State University’s Energy Conference that $150 oil and $4 gasoline may not be far off, and that global demand for oil is running at 87 million barrels per day while supply is only at 85 million barrels.

Photo by Patrick Moore, stock.xchng

The founder and chairman of Dallas-based BP Capital Management also told Bloomberg viewers that a possible Brazilian discovery that could have 8 billion barrels of crude would not make much of an impact on the oil market. Pickens said:

The 8 billion will come in handy, and that’s about all. It’s not going to solve any problems.

You can access the 12 minute 43 second interview here.

Source:

“Oil Prices May Climb to $150 a Barrel, Boone Pickens Says”
Edward Klump
Bloomberg, April 29, 2008

Yesterday, energy investor T. Boone Pickens, Jr., attended Oklahoma State University’s Energy Conference and shared his thoughts about the sector. Pickens said our future in energy has five basic avenues: coal, natural gas, nuclear, wind and solar. According to the Journal Record’s Jerry Shottenkirk, The “Oracle of Oil” said $150 oil and $4 gasoline may not be far off. Global demand for oil is running at 87 million barrels per day, and global oil supply is at 85 million barrels. Shottenkirk wrote:

Many have pointed a finger at speculators for driving up the price of crude oil on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Pickens said it’s the supply and demand problem that is taking the price sky high.

“Only 5 percent of oil is in the commodity pool,” he said. “If you did run it up, it would be briefly. Speculators cannot move it that much.”

The legendary oil investor also likes natural gas, which he feels may be the answer to powering American vehicles. Pickens said:

Seven million cars and trucks in the world are powered by (natural gas), and we only have 150,000 in the U.S. It will work. It’s a clean and cheap domestic resource, but we have to have a plan to use it (for vehicles).

Photo by Lonnie Bradley, stock.xchng

This summer, Pickens predicts that natural gas could hit $14 per 1,000 cubic feet and could rise as high as $18 or $20 per 1,000 cubic feet, depending on the weather. Pickens said as natural gas continues to go up in price, it makes wind more attractive. According to Tulsa World’s Jason Womack, the famous investor claimed wind could meet much of the demand for new power generation needed by utilities, along with coal and nuclear power.

The founder of chairman of Dallas-based BP Capital Management is embarking on constructing the world’s largest wind farm. Convinced that there is a path from Texas up into Canada that is ideal for wind generation, Pickens said his company, Mesa Power, is investing $10 billion on wind and is planning to buy enough land in the Texas Panhandle for 2,700 wind turbines, capable of generating 4,000 megawatts of electricity.

Sources:

“Pickens: Oil to go to $150 a barrel”
Jerry Shottenkirk
Journal Record, April 24, 2008

“Pickens focuses on natural gas, alternative energy”
Jason Womack
Tulsa World, April 23, 2008

Yesterday, billionaire energy investor T. Boone Pickens, Jr., was at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and said that the price of crude oil will continue to rise. Pickens said:

The position is long, not short. I covered the short position, it was a mistake on my part. We missed.

According to Bloomberg’s Daniel Whitten:

Pickens said he thought oil was approaching $125 a barrel. Oil will eventually reach $150 per barrel, he said, while cautioning “I won’t be investing in $150 oil.”

According to the “Oracle of Oil,” world supplies won’t surpass the current 85 million barrels a day due to high depletion rates of existing wells. OPEC has not increased production this year. Whitten noted world oil demand during the four years ending 2008 is rising at an average annualized pace of about 1.4%, according to the International Energy Agency.

The Bloomberg reporter also said that Pickens plans to invest $10 billion in 4,000 megawatts of wind projects within the next several years. Pickens, who expects a minimum 25% return on this investment, said, “We are going to put a lot of money into wind next month.” According to Jim Landers of the Dallas Morning News, the founder and chairman of Dallas-based BP Capital LLC is not waiting around that long. Today, Landers wrote:

Dallas energy magnate T. Boone Pickens said Thursday that he plans to execute contracts as early as next week for $1.5 billion in wind turbines across four Panhandle counties to generate power for North Texas.

Mr. Pickens said he also hopes to start acquisition in May for a right-of-way to transmit the power and large volumes of aquifer water to the Dallas area from ranch and farming land around Pampa.

Pickens called Mesa Power LLC’s wind/water activities in Roberts, Gray, Hemphill and Wheeler counties “the biggest project in the world,” with a combined cost of $13 billion. It’s expected to produce 1,000 megawatts of electricity by 2011 and 4,000 megawatts once the project is finished in 2014.

Sources:

“Pickens Reverses Position to Bet on Higher Oil Prices (Update4)”
Daniel Whitten
Bloomberg, April 17, 2008

“Pickens to import water, wind power to North Texas”
Jim Landers
Dallas Morning News, April 18, 2008

Ed Pilkington of The Guardian (UK) got the chance to speak to famous oilman T. Boone Pickens, Jr., in his Dallas office about his plans to build the world’s largest wind farm. Pilkington wrote Monday:

This month he will make the first down payment on 500 wind turbines at a cost of $2m each. The order is the first material step towards his goal of building the world’s largest wind farm.

Over the next four years he intends to erect 2,700 turbines across 200,000 acres of the Texan panhandle. The scheme is five times bigger than the world’s current record-holding wind farm and when finished will supply 4,000 megawatts of electricity - enough to power about one million homes.

Pickens, who is known as “The Oracle of Oil,” believes that the biggest problem facing the United States in the next 50 years is energy. The Guardian reporter wrote:

Pickens, being Pickens, has come up with a solution - and it makes his own gargantuan plans for a wind farm in the panhandle look tiny. For the benefit of the Guardian, he draws on a white board his master scheme. He carves out an enormous corridor of land running north to south through the middle of the US - along the great plains - where he would build an army of wind farms. Then he draws an equally enormous corridor running east to west from Texas to southern California which he would similarly dedicate to solar energy.

Source:

“Big oil to big wind: Texas veteran sets up $10bn clean energy project”
Ed Pilkington
The Guardian (UK), April 14, 2008

I came across the following press release this morning from NeoFirma, a Dallas-based company which specializes in well information management services for the energy industry. According to the release, legendary oil investor T. Boone Pickens participated in a NeoFirma webcast on March 28, where he talked about the importance of natural gas as an “exciting” and “promising” alternative to oil. Back on March 25, shares of Clean Energy Fuels (Nasdaq: CLNE) spiked 10.4%, or $1.23, to $13.10, at the close after Pickens said in a television interview that the natural gas company was one of his top holdings (he also happens to be co-founder and largest shareholder of the company).

The press release said:

DALLAS–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Legendary oilman T. Boone Pickens weighed in on the United States’ energy situation during a recent webcast hosted in part by NeoFirma, the leader in well information management services for the energy industry. Mr. Pickens also offered insight into what the future of transportation fuel can and should be.

“The United States’ oil production peaked at 10 million barrels a day during the 1970s,” says Pickens. “Today we’re producing half of that with absolutely no hope of increasing production. Even if we opened up the entire country and looked for it, it’s just not there.”

That statistic, coupled with the nearly six billion dollars being spent each year to import oil, led Mr. Pickens to provide a grim assessment of today’s economic situation. “This is the greatest transfer of wealth from one area to another in the history of mankind, and this country just can’t stand it. But there are ways to make a dent in our dependence on foreign oil.”

He cites using our own country’s abundance of natural resources – natural gas in particular – to reduce the import of foreign oil by as much as 30 percent. Specifically, using natural gas as a transportation fuel will not only decrease the country’s foreign dependencies, but will also make great strides towards cleaning up the environment.

“Natural gas is a cleaner fuel source and North America has an abundance of supply to tap into,” says Pickens. “Just look at what’s occurring with shale development throughout the country. It’s real and it’s happening everywhere – from Northeast British Columbia to the Barnett Shale in Texas; from the Appalachian Basin to the Fayetteville Shale in Alabama. In today’s business and economic environment, natural gas is much more exciting and promising than oil. It is the premium fossil fuel.”

Mr. Pickens made these comments during his webcast interview with the Southern Gas Association on March 28, 2008. To view the program in its entirety, visit here. The interview was co-sponsored by NeoFirma.

From prospecting and exploration through operations, NeoFirma provides natural gas producers and service providers the ability to create improved value through its web-based information services. NeoFirma’s services create performance reports and graphs to manage every point of the well’s life cycle – assisting clients in the business decision process with the right information, at the right time, and at the right place.

For more information, visit www.neofirma.com.

Contacts
NeoFirma
Terry P. Whitcher, 214-233-7111
ext. 101
twhitcher@neofirma.com

Source:

“Boone Pickens’ Energy Forecast: Natural Gas is the Transportation Fuel for Tomorrow”
BusinessWire, April 3, 2008