Quote of the day: “The real problem of humanity is this: we have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions and godlike technology.” E.O Wilson

Strategy Session 4pm ET (now) Robert Clarke Wood Mackenzie US E&P

Happy Hour today, to help you think about the potential for major M&A in US oil & gas, we have an exploration and production (E&P) focus. Major E&P M&A and consolidation are very much in the air. My pet theory is Chevron for ConocoPhillips, but the market is all over Devon as a breakup or takeover. We just got EQT for Range. Wildcard might be ExxonMobil for Oxy, XOM can use its balance sheet, taking

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Energy Transition
Paul Sankey

Meet Your Next President (Ossoff Bluenami)

Oof well, we have been working a lot on refining valuation these past weeks, and the refiners got absolutely smashed today. Shout out to the trading desk (I can give you their name but don’t have permission right now to quote) for calling $350/share as the bounce point in Valero, which was down over -10% (low $347.25, -10.4% intraday) at that point, the trader nailed the call in an email to clients. Old School Peabody

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Energy Transition
Paul Sankey

US Refining: Mr Icahn plans for a sprint, not Marathon

Well, refining is boiling oil, and we got two major refining surprises in four days, with the announcement today that Marathon is selling two rather nice Midwest refineries to Carl Icahn’s Coffeyville, for an absolutely massive price. Key takeaway repeats what we already told you: Valero got Lyondell Houston for a song. Marathon did not have to sell. There is no particular evidence that the company needed the cash, quite the contrary. This is a

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