By Tim Fields
This past weekend, I took both my boys (age 6 & 2) up to a hunting property I lease in West Virginia. The property is in the absolute middle of nowhere, which resides in Clay County. I primarily use this property for hunting alone, but this year I felt like my oldest was ready to primitive camp.
We left on Saturday morning around 7 am and it took me about 4 hours to get there. Once we got there, we had to do 2 important things; set the tent up and build a fire. After about an hour of fussing with tent poles and the rain fly, our living quarter for the weekend was up.
After we got that straight, it was right to the fire; me and my boys walked all over and we carried a bunch of wood back to camp, mine in my arms and theirs with their Tonka trucks.
Once this was done, the boys knew it was playtime; we could do anything we wanted to do now that the important things were completed. We took a walk down to one of the many cold water streams running down the mountain and we started to look under rocks for crayfish (it was to be surf and turf for dinner) and looking for any fossils we could find. As we turned over rocks my oldest asked me, “Daddy, what is this black stuff all over?”
It was coal and a lot of it. Everywhere we looked where water eroded the soil, there were huge and small chunks of layered coal. We were in the heart of coal and natural gas country and it was very obvious. I explained that coal is like wood, people burn it to keep warm and to power things like big electric plants; so naturally my son wanted to burn some, so we collected a bunch and brought it back to camp, where we threw it into the fire before bed to keep the animals away…
And Animals we heard…
It must have been somewhere around 2am when I heard some barking followed by some very intense howling. We had a coyote not too far away looking for company. My boys, still sleeping, didn’t hear a thing. This went on for 3 or 4 times before he went quite. It wasn’t until about 3:30 that he must have met up with his pack and they’ll started their classic coyote pack conversations of yips and yaps and howls. It was amazing to hear this and this time, my oldest was wakened with the sound. I explained to him quietly what they were and how we had nothing to worry about because they are deathly afraid of people, especially one with a bushmaster and a glock 40.
The next day, which was Sunday, we went hiking again and the boys pushed their Tonkas through the mountains, searching for more rocks and coal. It was a great trip and for the boys, a very good and educational trip, not to mention their first camping trip ever.
This morning as I got into the office, I started to research coal in WV and elsewhere – knowing the Administration has declared war on this essential commodity, I wanted to see exactly where we stood in regards to coal stocks. As I read through fundamentals and earnings, there are definitely signs of a war. These companies have been hit hard and are a shadow of what they were… and what they could and should be.
There was one in particular which stood out. The company is Westmoreland Coal Company (WLB). This small cap has a negative EPS ($.42) but a chart that other coal companies should be jealous of. Have a look at it here.
The company literally went from $11 in July of 2013 to its current price of near $30. Not bad for 9 months’ time.
In February, Robert P. King, Westmoreland’s President and Chief Executive Officer spoke about their year-end report. King said, “Our record results for 2013 were primarily driven by strong power demand, low hydro generation and favorable weather conditions that allowed our customers to dispatch at high rates. We are also very pleased that the Kemmerer Mine, which was acquired in January 2012, continued to perform beyond our original expectations.”
This is a solid performing coal pure play and would do well for you, given the past performance of the company and it’s future and projected growth. Until this regime goes completely communist, there are going to be rocks stars out there like Westmoreland that will perform higher than the industry average.
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