Has oil finally found a bottom for breathing room? The answer to that question varies handily from investors and the market and industry participants. After touching $40 earlier this year, after that massive tank in oil prices, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude seems to have settled down in a range of $45 to $50 per barrel for now. 24/7 Wall St. would remind readers that the market will determine prices here, and predicting oil prices has become as mystical as predicting gold prices.

Investors have been picking through the oil patch to see where there is long-term opportunity and to see what they need to avoid. The one consensus that has seemed to prevail through the recent hard times is that the larger oil and gas outfits almost certainly will be able outlast the smaller and less experienced tier-two and tier-three ones. This is why investors have been looking for opportunities in the mid-cap and large-cap stocks that are generally still profitable or will be ahead.

24/7 Wall St. tracked five key analyst calls that stood out above the rest in the oil patch in this past week. These were all coming with Buy or Outperform ratings, and the analyst reports generally came with a price target that was higher than the consensus price target from Thomson Reuters.

We have highlighted these five calls, but investors need to understand that these should not in any way be considered short-term opportunistic swing trades. These would come with a one-year or even longer-term outlook. If oil rolls back over and heads south again, it is only prudent to expect that these oil stocks will see their share prices head south as well.

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Another observation here is that these are either the most optimistic analyst calls on each stock or they are close to it. Again, the calls were above-average against respective consensus price targets. These are the five big oil and gas analyst picks that stood out the most in last week’s calls for big companies with active share volume.

Carrizo Oil & Gas

Wells Fargo maintained Carrizo Oil & Gas Inc. (NASDAQ: CRZO) as Outperform at on Friday after the company’s upsized 6 million plus share equity offering (including overallotment), because it provides a cushion to easily allow debt repayment and facilitate potential acquisitions. It also should remove investor concerns about capital spending and leverage.

Carrizo also pre-released strong third-quarter production numbers and raised full-year production targets. Wells Fargo even slightly raised its 2015 earnings from $0.88 to $0.90 per share and now sees a gain of $0.08 in earnings per share (EPS) in 2016 rather than a 40 cent loss. Wells Fargo put a valuation range of $50.00 to $55.00 per share for Carrizo, which would imply upside of almost 25% to 36% ahead.

Carrizo’s consensus analyst price target is $50.35, and its street-high target price is $60.00. It has a 52-week trading range of $27.79 to $56.77. Its market cap may only be about $2.2 billion now, but the recent offering has elevated interest as it traded over 7 million shares on Friday alone.

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Phillips 66

On Friday, Credit Suisse reiterated its Outperform rating on Phillips 66 (NYSE: PSX). What stands out is the $105.00 price target, which matches the street-high analyst target price. That target implies 25% appreciation, plus a dividend yield of close to 3%, but we would remind readers that is also the most bullish analyst view there is.

Credit Suisse maintained that the company is getting closer to its growth spurt as the self-help at Phillips 66 is large and getting closer, which should bring higher free cash flow, lower volatility and a higher price-to-earnings (P/E) multiple. Oh and it can’t really hurt the company’s reputation that Warren Buffett is now the top shareholder in the company.

Shares ended the week at $84.12, and Phillips 66 has a consensus price target of $94.08 and a 52-week range of $57.33 to $84.87.

Rice Energy

This one comes with a market cap of only $2.3 billion, so it is on the lower-end of mid-cap stocks but it is rather active in share volume. At the start of this last week, and on the heels of a Utica Shale Midstream joint venture with Gulfport in Ohio, Topeka Capital Markets decided to initiate coverage on Rice Energy Inc. (NYSE: RICE) with a Buy rating and a whopping $28.00 price target.

The stock’s prior close was $17.87, but shares ended this last week at $16.93, implying upside now of more than 60%. Topeka’s $28 target price is almost $3.00 higher than the consensus target, and the 52-week range is $15.47 to $30.10. Other firms have lowered their price targets here, but the new venture will increase Rice’s footprint handily and it will own 75% of the venture.

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Royal Dutch Shell

Argus raised Royal Dutch Shell PLC (NYSE: RDS-A) to Buy last Wednesday, but what stood out was the firm’s $73.00 price target. This was against a $54.13 prior close and a Friday close of $56.35. Many analysts do not have such strict price targets and objectives for American depositary shares of foreign companies trading in New York. Still, this implies upside of roughly 30%, and then there is the dividend yield of close to 5% to consider as well.

Argus said that it expects Shell’s underperformance against the S&P and the energy sector in the past five years to reverse as Shell cuts costs, improves its return on capital and maintains adequate liquidity. Royal Dutch Shell has a 52-week range of $45.81 to $72.20, and its stock was well above $80.00 in the New York trading in early 2014.

Schlumberger

Schlumberger Ltd. (NYSE: SLB) is the de facto leader in the oil services sector. Wells Fargo decided to trim its earnings power estimates on Friday for years 2015 to 2017 to account for a sharper decline in North American revenue and margins and international pricing weakness and margin weakness. Still, it has an Outperform rating with big upside targets.

Wells Fargo said:

Despite the reductions, we reiterate our Outperform rating and believe current price levels represent an attractive entry point as, in our view, oil prices stabilize in the coming months, global exploration and production spending troughs in 2016, and the downward earnings per share revision cycle is close to an end.

The firm even thinks further mergers and acquisitions may come after the Cameron purchase. And note that the valuation range is $92.00 to $103.00, versus a current price of $74.50, a consensus analyst price target of $92.30 and a 52-week range of $66.57 to $100.54. Wells Fargo’s valuation range implies upside of 25% to 38%.

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