Fundamentals of Investing in Oil and Gas Paperback – May 2, 2013

You can tell the author put a lot of time into this book as it is very well written. Comes with plenty of visual aid pictures as well with excellent descriptions. I like how he uses real life easily to relate to examples to describe complex things. This book is great as it opens one up to a wide variety of topics and how they not only work within the oil and gas industry but also how the industry couldnt function without them. Understanding that the market is dependent on several factors and how each part works compared to the whole is what can separate a well seasoned oil investor or natural gas investor from a novice.Fundamentals of Investing in Oil and Gas is a great reference for a professionals to an interesting read for someone who is just getting start. Would suggest rereading it for a second time if you do not have a clue about the industry.

This book was enjoyable to read. It has a lot of information that I wasnt expecting to find. I am a novice and found it to be written in a very non technical language which I found to be essential. I found the operational aspect of developing oil and gas projects from start to finish to be inspiring to say the least. The author seems to focus on management and proven assets instead of hear say numbers of a so called profitable company which I find to be an important part to any investment. I was slightly surprised to to find out some of the ways oil companies inflate there assets. I also thought the overall structure was well done too. It starts with the history of the industry oil and then explains natural gas as everyone is talking about how that is the next big thing. then the focus moves how these commodities are formed and found. The operations of developing these resources is explained next in great detail that is easy to understand for a novice. Once the oil or natural gas is found then it is transported and the strategies, logistics and people are outlined very well. The refining is also of importance as it shows the challenges for the commodity like natural gas to replace oil in the future. The end is very interesting as it bring the book together with potential future outcomes and trading of finished products along with the specifications of each product. Try not to skip chapters if possible as I found it to be important to know all details of the industry, I strongly believe that you have to know the challenges of the future, the difficulties it is currently facing and the yearly cycles of the industry in order to be successful. Understanding what a company does from day to day is the most important thing and the same can be said about the managers, CEO's and brokers that your money goes towards. Know every aspect of it all with this book before jumping into the industry for the first time and if you were in a deal that didnt turn out as well as you thought then this book might help you understand why and who is at fault if anyone.

I strongly disagree with the other 3 star rating of this book as I found it highly informative and helpful.The very first line of the book explains exactly what you are getting into. Chapter 1 "Never invest in a business that you cannot understand"From there the Author goes into many of the important aspects of the industry from start to finish. It is highly focused on operations, development procedures, and management. I personally find these aspects of any business very important when I evaluate a potential investing opportunity. This should be a core principle behind any investment, inside or outside of the oil and gas industry.I also agree with the line at the end of the book, "Commodities like crude oil and natural gas are often more volatile than other markets, such as currencies, stocks and bonds. This is largely due to the tangible nature of of the commodity itself. Stocks, bonds and currencies are typically NOT backed by anything other than computer data that can be easily manipulated in a manner of ways, such as altering contracts, issuing more shares, printing more currency or borrowing more money, to name a few." some of these statements can easily be applied to many companies outside the oil and gas industry on the stock market.The other reviewer Seneca simply stated that they were looking for discussions on topics that are clearly more advanced and outside of the scope of this type of book. They should of been looking for a book that doesn't carry the word "Fundamentals" in the title. The word Fundamentals/Fundamentals is defined as: of or relating to the basic structure or function of something. Or: of, relating to, or produced by the lowest component of a complex vibration. This industry is complex to say the least. I believed this individual should of purchased a better suited titled that stated something like "advanced trading" or something to that affect in the title. The fracking statement is also insulting as a review, even though this technology has been around for decades, it is only recently been implemented. This data is not only hard to find but also difficult to impossible at this stage to make any precise statements on.I found this book to be a great reference for gaining knowledge on an industry that I previously knew little about. It gave me a great foundation to build on and I find the word "Fundamentals" in the title to be very accurate description as it definds the type of investment one can make. also, no where in the table of contents does it make any attempt to discuss what Seneca's expectations that were stated in their review. Might I add that the table of contents is also available for free on every website that I have come across that displayed this book for sale. It is also in the free preview on this website as well.This book just like all other books dealing with investing, does not give you exact and particular investing advice, for example it does not straight out tell you to invest in a particular company but it does give you incredible knowledge and background in how to evaluate an opportunity. I find this book to be a valuable tool but not a golden ticket to invest in a particular company. This book simply lays down the foundation to build upon.If you are a day trader or someone that can be considered to be an active investor on the stock markets already, I would expect you would still find this book helpful and informative, but it will not increase your ability to compare and contrast stocks of existing companies (you can get this type of data from the majority of big electronic investing websites for free anyways). This book also does not go into any particular stock market investing strategies, if it did the odds are (if they were valid) they would be out of date by the time you not only read them but surely before you acted on such a strategy. As stated before this book gave me a lot of knowledge to evaluate many opportunities within the oil and gas industry.If you are looking for discussions on how to compare and contrast stocks then I suggest you join one of the many forums where brokers and investors bicker over what stock is better or not and their theories behind their statements.

I was surprised in how the book accomplished the goal of explaining the industry in a basic language a normal person would be able to understand without having a background in oil or gas. I have invested in a few things but never oil or natural gas. Each company or prospect should be evaluated on many grounds not just geology. Daily operations are extremely important. The book goes into many sides of both oil and natural gas. The book also goes into great detail on transportation and refining not just breaking ground which others books seem to focus on. I learned that there are many kinds of investments in the oil and gas. It is a great book to build on. it should give you a better understanding.

When one wants to invest in say, potatoes, one has to understand the entire value chain, from which seeds to plant on which type of soil when, how much water is needed, optimum ambient temperature, type of manure to use, when to harvest. Then one can estimate quite accurately how much it will cost to produce one potato. This book does that for Oil and Gas. The last 4 chapters are solid gold.