NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / December 19, 2016 / Oil & Gas stocks surged Friday after a rise in oil prices signaled major producers were willing to abide by their agreement to cut production in 2017. U.S. crude futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange spiked 1.96 percent to close at $51.90 a barrel, while Brent crude futures closes at $55.21 a barrel, up 2.2 percent on the London's ICE Futures exchange.

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On November 30th, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) surprised skeptics when they announced their first production cut in eight years. The deal announced by OPEC would see their oil producers lower their production by a total of 1.2 million barrels per day January 1st. OPEC documents show that the world's largest oil producer, Saudi Arabia, will lower production by 486,000 barrels a day to 10.058 million a day, while the second largest producer, Iraq, has agreed to lower production by 210,000 barrels from the levels produced in October. Russia, a major Non-OPEC member, has also shown its support by agreeing to cut production by 300,000 barrels per day.

"Every country is already taking steps to do what they say they are going to do which, by my estimation, will put oil in a global supply deficit early next year," wrote Phil Flynn, senior market analyst at the Price Futures Group, in a note to clients.

RDInvesting Takes a Closer Look at Some Popular Oil & Gas Companies

Stone Energy Corporation (NYSE: SGY)

Get Your Up-To-Date Stone Energy Research Report at www.rdinvesting.com/company/SGY.

Stone Energy's shares surged 23.80 24.0 percent to close at $7.75 a share Friday. The stock traded between $5.86 and $8.50 on volume of 3.95 million shares traded. The company recently announced the filing of a prepackaged restructuring plan. On December 5th, the company provided an operational update on its Amethyst well. Production from Amethyst well has been discontinued since late April 2016 to facilitate technical evaluation. During first week of November, the company has initiated acid simulation work and intermittently flowed the well during November at a rate of 10-15 million cubic feet of gas per day and on November 30, company has performed routine shut in of the well. The estimated proven reserves associated with the Amethyst well at year-end 2015 were approximately 79 billion cubic feet of gas equivalent, however company does not guarantee that it will be able to restore the well's production to earlier levels or at all. Shares of Stone Energy have fallen approximately 81.9 percent year-to-date, but have rallied roughly 80.0 percent in the past month.

Whiting Petroleum Corp. (NYSE: WLL)

Get Your Up-To-Date Whiting Petroleum Research Report at www.rdinvesting.com/company/WLL.

Whiting Petroleum's shares gained 0.92 percent to close at $12.02a share Friday. The stock traded between $11.60 and $12.05 on volume of 18.20 million shares traded. On December 1, Analysts at Stifel have recently upgraded the company's rating to "buy" from "hold" and have also raise its price target on the stock to $15 from $13, Recently analysts at Wells Fargo has downgraded the company from "outperform" to "market perform". Consensus forecast for the stock has changed from "hold" to "outperform" with median target price of $12.50, since early November as the sentiment of analysts has improved for the company. On November 21st, the company announced that it had entered into sales agreements for its North Dakota midstream assets. Shares of Whiting Petroleum have gained approximately 27.3 percent year-to-date and are up roughly 27.6 percent in the past month.

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Disclaimer: This article is written by an independent contributor of RDInvesting.com and reviewed by Hemal K. Gandhi, a CFA® charter holder. RDInvesting.com is neither a registered broker dealer nor a registered investment advisor. For more information please read our full disclaimer at www.rdinvesting.com/disclaimer.

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