BTE has been ugly. Ten-year return is now -90%. The stock is cheap, but needs a catalyst to move. The balance sheet is OK, with debt at 1X cash flow. It halted its dividend for many many years, and re-established it in mid 2023. Yield is 3.96% now. It has leverage, with production of 144,000 b/d (down 4% in the Q1). It is buying back stock. With more of a heavy oil focus, costs are higher, but we would not expect solvency to be an issue unless debt rose more or oil prices truly collapsed. It aims to hedge about 45% of production so this does mitigate financial risk somewhat. It could also stop its buybacks and dividends if it needed to pay down debt faster than planned. It has been a trap for a while. Recent M&A activity though highlight how cheap it would be for another company to buy. A $5 oil price change does swing cash flow by $225M. This implies (simple math) oil could go to about $40 before cash flow shifts negative (this assumes no hedges). We do not like the history of the company. It 'should' be higher based on fundamentals. M&A does offer some potential here, but we would not consider it a need-to-own stock by any stretch.
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