Christmas Trees Under the Sea

For Wednesday’s Mad Money, Cramer added FMC Technologies to his list of companies that keep offshore oil drilling safe and clean.

All week he’s been highlighting names like Oceaneering International and Compagnie General de Geophysique-Veritas that use high-tech to keep the search for oil as low impact as possible.

How does FMC Tech do its part? This company’s the leader in Christmas, or subsea, trees, which connect deepwater oil wells to rigs at the surface. These trees control the flow of oil and gas, as well as other fluids used to regulate pressure in oil wells so as to prevent spillage-inducing blowouts.

The increased use of subsea trees and their connection to a single manifold help to cut costs for companies by reducing the number of rigs needed at the surface. (It also means less chance of spillage since there are fewer umbilicals at risk of being severed.) And the trees grant oil drillers functionality at a deepwater level that humans could never provide.

Enough praise for the tech…here’s what makes the stock so great:

• FMC is raising capacity to meet demand.
• The subsea business has grown 29% since 2002; FMC expects it to grow 62% over the next five years.
• The earnings visibility: FMC expects $1.8 billion worth of work over the next 15 months.
• Then there’s the $5 billion backlog.
• There’s a potential stock buyback worth 10% of shares outstanding.
• The stock is cheap, cheap, cheap.

Even cheaper right now, actually, thanks to the hit the entire oil patch is taking. FMC’s trading almost three points lower than Monday’s close.

Usually, Cramer would urge viewers to wait before they bought a stock he recommended. There’s usually a better entry point after the Mad Money hype dies down. But with prices this low, maybe you shouldn’t.

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