It's one of the first tasks you learn on the job, and even when your engaged on something live many analysts will roll out one or two snapshots a week. Although an actual template doesn't add much value, I think discussing what the most important topics in oil and gas does - and that's exactly what the overview is supposed to do.
The obvious
Parts of the overview are a no brainer. Usually the upper left quadrant discusses the basics of the company, like: name, ticker, headquarters, total enterprise value, average boe or cfe (barrels of oil equivalent for the more liquid [oil based] companies and cubic feet equivalent for the more gassy companies), net acreages (net as in net of working interest, oil and gas companies joint venture a lot of their land), and most recent guidance on the years capital budget and exit production.
The financials
Nearly every front page will have a "cap table" or a capitalization of the company. The flow of most capital tables goes something like: most recent stock price, fully diluted shares outstanding (getting this number right takes some carefully reading through the most recent Q and new releases since), market capitalization, net debt, and total enterprise value. Then come the optionals, if they pay a good dividend, include a dividend yield, if you want them to look cheap cherry pick the right multiples ($/acre if they have a lot of land but little resource, etc.) Credit stories need credit multiples, buyside stories need low metrics, sellside stories need high metrics, every company will have some of each depending on how you cut it. Rarely would you ever see a balance sheet, income statement or cash flow statement in any part of the presentation, although sometimes you see EBITDA and CFPS.
Resources
The resources are the meat of any natural resources company discussion. Oil and gas companies let these numbers slip in 3 main areas, the Annual Information Form that is disclosed every year end, the MD&A for each quarterly report, and the latest Investor Presentation. You can also add to the story through press release disclosure, quarterly transcripts and additional disclosure you can find in the annual report. Generally you want to find net acres by play and all the resource stats by play (Proved, Probable, Possible, Best Estimate Contingent). You also want % liquids, the average EUR (Estimated Ultimate Recovery) of the wells by formation, supply cost of the play (the break even gas price at 9% discount rate typically).
That's the first page usually, next you focus more on the story. You might profile each individual play they have, some merger metrics, etc.
Generally if you know how to talk to each of these points, you are ready to participate at some level in conversations with the client - and that's the first step to associate level banking.
