I don't know much about the stock, but STO has the best franchise of any oil major, in that their Natural Gas business is remarkably protected..
I don't know too much myself, but it represents 20% of the market capitalization on OSE:OSLO and is normally the most liquid stock traded. I was anticipating a bottom in this area, but it looks like the down trend resumes for now, so I'm certainly not buying yet.
Oil prices dropping again today even after one of the largest job gains in years...something is not right. $150 billion worth of oil projects might not make it... http://www.cnbc.com/id/102242982
Oil is dropping because USD is strengthening- the Carry Trade in crude futures is being hit. I have no view on any stock. But as a company many in the Oil space are great: STO, RDS, ...
The funny part...there are no threads about "evil speculators" driving down the price of oil. I love how free market haters only complain when markets are at one extreme but not the other.
Crude Oil prices, while low, are not actually at an "extreme" and are not the victim of speculation. The oil companies remain very profitable at these prices. XOM's all-in costs per barrel are $20 and Tillotson said just today on CNBC that they would be fine with WTI at $40. Speculators do talk up Oil- they do lie and they do try to push price up. Also, the price of Oil is high compared with the prices of Gasoline- refining is not in the money on the screen right now. So Crude is expensive in that key way.
In other words, "I'm one of those 'blame the evil speculator' guys so here's a rambling paragraph to make my point!" Extreme is in the eye of the beholder. The consumer sees gas prices-as-oil, and they're the lowest in 4 years in some places. If Eric Holder still had his AG job and wasn't so busy fanning racial flames, maybe he could put together another worthless task force on the topic.