National Fuel and Gas (NFG) on 11/21 with unusual activity as 4000 January $65 calls bought to open, a name that has very little open interest and rarely trades options.

NFG was a write-up on 6-1-2024 for members as an under-appreciated Natural Gas company and recently seen a lot of interest in the natural gas space with a strong outlook for 2025 with surging power demand from data centers.

NFG is a diversified energy company engaged principally in the production, gathering, transportation, storage and distribution of natural gas. The Company operates an integrated business, with assets centered in western New York and Pennsylvania, being used for, and benefiting from, the production and transportation of natural gas from the Appalachian Basin.  Current natural gas production development activities are focused in the Marcellus and Utica shales, geological formations that are present nearly a mile or more below the surface in the Appalachian region of the United States.  Pipeline development activities are designed to transport natural gas production to both existing and new markets.

NFG with a market cap of $5.76B trading 6.4X EBITDA with double-digit EBITDA growth seen the next two years and a healthy balance sheet could easily attract M&A interest.