“It’s a good time to be in the business,” Jacobs Engineering President and CEO Craig Martin said of the oil and gas business while talking to Cramer on Mad Money today. His company deals with energy infrastructure, building refineries or handling large extractions.
Jacobs’ projects are often for the long term, and Cramer wanted to point out that the Street often overlooks this. “An oil price move from $68 to $58 just won’t have any impact,” Martin said. In fact, most of his customers are using a price in the low $40s as a benchmark for finance projections to see if these projects make sense for them.
Cramer took the chance to ask Martin about his company’s interests in Canada. Some critics says the country is doing less drilling than it used to and that Jacobs could run into trouble with environmental groups looking to block its business. But Martin disagrees.
“We think it’s great for the long term,” the CEO said. Jacobs is seeing projects extended into as many as 10 phases that could run two to three years a piece to completion. Martin admits there are some cost and labor issues, as well as pushback from the “greenies,” but “the drivers are overwhelming,” he says, “and we think the investment is going to continue for a long time.”
But what about your downstream refinery-building business? Cramer asked. Nobody has built a refinery in the U.S. in 28 years. Where’s the business coming from? Martin says that interestingly enough the refining business is bringing in a lot of cash these days, even in the U.S. Now that cash is being spent on expansion, Jacobs’ business. Martin sees $48 billion in capacity expansion in the U.S. and Europe over the next seven to eight years and about another $40 billion in the Middle East.
“I like this company. I like their book of business,” Cramer says. He’s also a fan of Chicago Bridge & Iron, Foster Wheeler, McDermott International, but at these prices, Jacobs could be best in show.
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