Look for buying opportunities as the markets stutter, and don't sweat the spate of capital raises among master limited partnerships.

Oil's rally was a major topic in the financial media on Tuesday and Wednesday, and a long list of pundits have attempted to explain the recent rally in crude prices. Many analysts asserted that oil's run-up has little to do with fundamentals of supply and demand, citing murky arguments related to the weaker US dollar and speculative fervor. But fundamementals are still at the heart of oil's recent move.

To fight declines from these legacy fields, global producers are scrambling. In most cases that means targeting more technically complex fields such as those in deepwater or in the Arctic. It also means drilling more complex horizontal wells or simply targeting smaller fields. To make a long story short, the more complex a field is to produce, the higher the demand for services and advanced oilfield equipment.

As always, one of the most enjoyable and useful aspects of the show from my perspective has been the question and answer (Q&A) sessions that follow each of my presentations and panels. These questions give me a window into what investor sentiment is toward energy and various sub-sectors.

The US economy is still shrinking, and the recession that began in December 2007 continues. Nevertheless, there’s been an important change for the better in recent weeks as the economy is no longer shrinking at as fast a pace.

The most striking thing about Dr. Chu’s comments was just how little he mentioned oil, coal, natural gas and nuclear power. The secretary highlighted the fact that Americans are heavily dependant on oil imports, and how expensive those imports are. He also showed an interesting chart that highlighted the correlation between US recessions and spikes in the price of oil.

Despite the steady drumbeat of bad news on the economy and oil and natural gas demand, I’m turning more bullish on energy commodities and related stocks. In fact, I’m more bullish on the sector now than I’ve been since last summer.

The refinery, located roughly 25 miles outside San Francisco, covers nearly 3,000 acres. In fact, Richmond is the largest refinery in the San Francisco Bay Area, with total throughput capacity of 240,000 barrels of oil per day and is Chevron’s third-largest wholly owned facility. It’s also among the oldest in the country--it opened more than a century ago, in 1902.

Neither ultra-low interest rates nor the fastest growth in money supply in a generation form the basis for a durable economic recovery. We absolutely need to see strength coming from other corners of the economy.

MLPs tend to own physical infrastructure and assets that generate a large slug of depreciation charges each year. In fact, one of the reasons that MLPs are able to pass along distributions to unitholders in a tax-advantaged way is that these firms are simply passing along their depreciation charges. Thus, high depreciation charges are actually good for unitholders.