We can bemoan the price at the pump, and I know many of you are bemoaning it. Or we can figure out which companies have decided, "This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make more money than we ever dreamed, and we are going to do it, and do it big for our shareholders."
That's the lesson of Devon (DVN) yesterday, where the company has decided the time is right to take a huge chunk of money and just go prospecting for oil. It makes sense that the stock could tack on still more points today after yesterday's run, because Devon's got a new find, still under wraps, that could be gigantic, a real needle mover -- and we know that needle-movers get stocks rocking.
I feel the same way about Magnum Hunter (MHR), the terrific little oil-and-gas company we had on "Mad Money" earlier this week that's increasing its output dramatically and transforming the company to what it called a drilling factory.
As much as you might not want to hear it, I think Tom Ward's doing the same thing with SandRidge (SD): He's buying oil properties left and right to take advantage of the sky-high price of crude.
Finally there's two others that we need to keep in front of you at all times, EOG (EOG) and Continental Resources (CLR), the dominators of the Eagle Ford and the Bakken, respectively.
Continental is almost singlehandedly trying to get North Dakota to be the No. 2 producer of oil after Texas. Considering the size of the Bakken, which CEO Harold Hamm says is as big as Prudhoe Bay -- the largest domestic find in 47 years -- I think Hamm could pull off his goal.
EOG? What can I say? Even after this run it remains one of the most undervalued oil companies in the world. I think that its Eagle Ford properties are worth the price of the whole company and you are getting the rest of it -- and there's a ton of it -- for free.
We are learning daily from the CEOs in the oil patch that we are just scratching the surface of our vast oil holdings in this country. John Richels, the fabulous Devon CEO, made it clear that if the United States were to harness its oil and natural gas holdings and allow the importation of Canadian crude with the Keystone pipeline, we could be energy self-sufficient in a couple of years.
That's a terrific feel-good story. But what I care about is making money off of it -- and the way to do that is to buy the stocks of those that are exploiting the reserve faster and better than anybody. These drillers are like the tech companies of yore, growing faster than almost every sector out there. Even after these runs, with oil staying elevated, they could remain the best places to be for 2012.
Get revenge. Go make the money back you lost at the pump ... and then some.
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