6% to 7% Yields for European Major Oil & Gas Stocks Drives 2013 Investment Focus: Oswald Clint, Senior Research Analyst for Oil & Gas Exploration and Production at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.

67 WALL STREET, New York - January 9, 2013 - The Wall Street Transcript has just published its Oil & Gas: Refining, Independent and Major Integrated Report offering a timely review of the sector to serious investors and industry executives. This special feature contains expert industry commentary through in-depth interviews with public company CEOs, Equity Analysts and Money Managers. The full issue is available by calling (212) 952-7433 or via The Wall Street Transcript Online.

Topics covered: Capital Expenditures and Consolidation Activity - Refining Crude Price Differentials - Frontier Exploration and Development - Shale Drilling Capital Expenditures - Oil and Gas Price Divergence - Oil Price Expectations - LNG Global Pricing Differentials

Companies include: BP plc (BP), Total SA (TOT), Petroleo Brasileiro (PBR) and many others.

In the following excerpt from the Oil & Gas: Refining, Independent and Major Integrated Report, an expert analyst from Sanford C. Bernstein & Company discusses the outlook for the sector for investors:

TWST: What are the key themes that will be most important for the European oil sector in 2013? What are some of the significant differences between the European and Russian oil industries and the U.S. oil industry that American investors should be aware of?

Mr. Clint: I think, certainly, with some Europeans, one, attraction is the higher yield. European integrated oils offer 6%, 7% dividend yields than let's say three, four times that all, let's say large-cap integrated oil companies in the U.S., so that's one aspect. But the other side is, they do actually have more African exposure in their portfolios, more Middle East exposures, and which may sound like a negative, but you do actually end up with higher returns. You kind of end up with higher cash flow per barrel, especially in Africa. Africa may sound like a risky place to operate, but the returns you make on projects there are actually very, very high, and that's the allure. That's why a lot of these companies keep going back to Africa, because the return certainly is so high.

And it's not the same as in North America where you suddenly realize you got a lot of resource, be it unconventional shale, oil and shale gas. But we have 28,000 companies in North America, and what happens is you find the resource and all of them develop it very, very quickly, and then you see what happens with natural gas. We drilled from $14 in Mcf just five years ago down to $3.7 today, and suddenly everybody's economic target just destroyed. If you went to Europe and Africa and other nations, you have hundreds of companies, not many thousands and thousands of companies. So I think that has a phenomena that can't actually happen, which is interesting.

So I think the other thing is they're also let's say more aggressive explorers for conventional hydrocarbons. One aspect of North American companies today is that they are all searching for..

For more of this interview and many others visit the Wall Street Transcript - a unique service for investors and industry researchers - providing fresh commentary and insight through verbatim interviews with CEOs, portfolio managers and research analysts. This special issue is available by calling (212) 952-7433 or via The Wall Street Transcript Online.