Call it “fabulous Friday” – a day on which a million-dollar profit was made on a single stock, surely the dream of every market player.

This seemingly impossible dream wasn’t realized by Warren Buffett, George Soros, or some hot money manager, but by a 50-year-old energy whiz, Alan Gaines.

His gusher came from his stake in Vintage Petroleum, spurred by a company announcement Friday that it had agreed to a $3.8 billion takeover offer of cash and stock from Occidental Petroleum. In response, Vintage’s shares shot up 27.1% Friday, closing the session at $49.06, up $10.47. Occidental’s offer was equivalent to a shade less than $50 a share for each Vintage share.

All told, his million-dollar payday was part of an overall profit on Vintage of more than $3.5 million.

Mr. Gaines, a former crack institutional energy analyst, confirmed he holds a position in Vintage, but he declined to discuss its size. However, knowledgeable energy sources tell me he owns more than 100,000 shares of Vintage, a position, it’s said, he’s held for about four years at an average purchase price of less than $15 a share.

Actually, Vintage is his second major killing on the energy takeover front in less than a year. In an interview I did in early 2004, he mentioned he owned shares of Unocal, which ChevronTexaco acquired last October in an $18.3 billion deal. Mr. Gaines, who is said to have owned a low six-figure stock position in Unocal at the time, is understood to have nailed down a healthy multimillion-dollar profit on that takeover, as well.

At present, Mr. Gaines, once described to me by the corporate raider Carl Icahn as “the smartest oil and gas guy I know on Wall Street,” is the chairman and CEO of Houston-based Dune Energy ($1.86), an American Stock Exchange-listed company primarily focusing on natural gas that is 78% owned by Itera Holdings, Russia’s second largest gas producer.

Considering his expertise at spotting energy takeover targets and his role as Mr. Icahn’s adviser in his hostile takeover attempts for such companies as Texaco, Phillips Petroleum, and Marathon Oil, it seemed logical to ask Mr. Gaines for his best buyout bets in the energy sector.

He gave me five names, all energy producers, and each of which, he noted, has positive fundamentals, strong management, sells at roughly a 20% to 30% discount to its true worth, and he rates as “a buy on its own, excluding any takeover.” He figures each of the five, all of which he owns personally, has the potential to rise 25% to 35% over the next 12 months. The names, plus their current and Mr. Gaines’s estimated buyout prices, are:

* Pogo Producing ($54.53); estimated takeover: $75.

* Marathon Oil ($59.75); estimated takeover: $84.

* Stone Energy ($47.05); estimated takeover: $67.

* Murphy Oil ($44.35); estimated takeover: $60.

* Ranger Resources ($34); estimated takeover: $58.

Mr. Gaines, who is said to have a personal energy portfolio valued in the high nine figures, predicts that the takeover trend in the industry is almost certain to go on at a brisk pace. His reasoning: It’s simply cheaper for a big company to buy reserves than to find them. By the same token, he stresses that he would never buy a stock solely on takeover speculation because, he says, “that’s a sure-fire strategy for losing money.”

Takeover speculation aside, Mr. Gaines’s energy portfolio also includes Arena Resources, Anadarko Petroleum, Chesapeake Energy, Carrizo Oil & Gas, and Conoco Phillips.

As for Dune Energy, he holds 5 million shares. In mid-September, Dune signed a joint development agreement with ExxonMobil for the exploration of 11,000 acres owned by Exxon in south Louisiana. Essentially, the drilling venture is aimed at finding shallow oil and deep gas.

dandordan@aol.com