EOG

Next Friday January 13th: REFINING CONFERENCE 2023 CONTINUES Phillips 66, 11am Zoom, CEO, CFO followed by Par Pacific CEO at noon. Still finalizing Valero and Neste, as well as niche player Vertex. Our best-read note of Q4 “The Inventory Underhang” (link below) in US oil reserves will continue to be a rolling mega-theme: yesterday Pioneer (featured in the note with Coterra) CEO Scott Sheffield again highlighted that marginal performance in the Basin is declining. He …

The mood on Wall Street is suddenly, that the market will have a traditional post-Midterm bull run into Christmas. Buy them all. There might be some threat from the major turn in the Chinese market, sucking money back into China, and of course the FTX Crypto collapse is widely reported to involve a $30bn personal net worth loss for the now-notorious Sam Bankman Fried, and an $8bn black hole. Will that negatively affect markets? Well […]

There was plenty of client interest in a comment we made a while ago now, say Q1 2022, that US exploration and production (E&P) companies have become homogenized in terms of what they offer shareholders, as basically all corporate strategies now have, thankfully: Focused on returns and so capital discipline, and Reduced growth to the benefit of market supply & demand balance. Those that cannot resist growth are private or have gone private (Continental Resources) […]

There was a collision yesterday in Tribeca between your experience-bitten, long-since cynical energy (oil) analyst, and the Schlumberger’s analyst meeting. Big oil clients have seen oily friends fired, exit Wall Street forever, been asked to cover extra sectors, been bullish when they should have been bearish, watched great companies humbled, seen clients lost to 1,000 yard stares. Schlumberger is a huge part of the arc of oil history, not least on Wall Street. We, the […]

Yo, Noted, French refining strike seems to be drawing to a close, with ExxonMobil’s Fos returning to normal. Continued issues with the most extreme of the unions, the CGT, for TotalEnergies. Around 30% of French gas stations reported short of product. We perceive the refining workers strike in Iran to be a domestic issue – for now. History of the Iranian Revolution was driven by strikes by Iranian oil workers. The 1979 Iran revolution directly […]

Hate to keep going with our infuriating “bearish short term, bullish long term” call (eg refining. We had a conversation with Battery Guru Steve Levine today about how badly future electric vehicle sales are going to fail to meet expectations over the coming years, and he is confirmed on Happy Hour for next week, 29th September, 5pm ET save the date. This week: Jay Saunders, Senior Co-Portfolio Manager, Jennison (Natural Resources). Jay has been running […]

Fed decision this week. TINA is dead. Nothing big in earnings this week, Fedex reporting Friday has warned, in case you totally missed last week; if you did, you missed the largest stock market move on an economic data point, in history Rules of Wall St series: Always short the new CEO of a highly rated stock. Not in the news: Iran’s Supreme Leader said to be gravely ill – watch for upheaval ~ Fed […]

It was a week that started with the Queen accepting a new British Prime Minister, and ended a new King Charles III and the always-somber 9-11. It is a miserable late summer day in New York, drizzle from a windless grey sky. With due respect, there is not a lot in those events directly relevant to oil/energy, and no doubt the last thing you need is more coverage from me. Rather, there is lots of […]

Labor Day outlook for oil and energy markets into year end; there is plenty more research to be done. You could make a big call on oil today for the next four months, and be wrong by Tuesday this week, with OPEC+ meeting Monday. If they cut and crank oil prices, you could make a bear call today, reverse your view on Tuesday and be wrong by Thursday when the ECB may be pushed towards […]

The two weeks, mid-earnings, when we pull together company results transcript comments, are not a science, they are an impressionistic art; a colour to our themes. Basically these are comments that caught our eye over the past week. Like sellside analysts, the companies tend to all present the same more-or-less generic message, but occasionally, as we strive with Sankey Research, a comment stands out, is differentiated, or so wild that it is worthy of note. […]

Tonight Happy Hour: Kathleen Kelley on OPEC. Frank Kelly (invited) on Washington DC – lots of action there. View share on results on what happens next. Today Thursday 4th August 5pm Eastern. Register for this meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUkc-qvqjgrH9NWL5mVuMMR2AyR3q1cZrtm I was on Bloomberg TV bright and early this morning and… I used the “B” word. Just to note, we are long natgas over oil into the coming economic slowdown, and playing for winter. The announcement that Freeport […]

Big week for what should be terrific oil earnings this week. Watching Iraq Highlight charts – market rebounding, oils catching a bid ~ Week ahead: It’s good to see that oil earnings have worked back onto generalist earnings calendars, as shown from “Earnings Whispers” below. Devon aftermarket Monday sure, BP, Marathon Petroleum and Oxy Tuesday, etc, but believe me, a year ago Berry and Callon did not make these lists (see Wednesday below). Marathon Oil […]

Greetings from La Villa des Orangers, Medina (Old Town), Marrakesh, Today – are the big E&Ps cheap? Antero LNG exports – 70mmcfd or 1bcf/d? Postcard from Morocco They say if you want a question answered on the internet, don’t ask the question, but rather post a bold false statement, and you will be flooded with corrections. It is an interesting point on human psychology. Earlier this week we said that Antero was exporting 1bcf/d of […]

Strategy Session was back to the round table stock discussion. It was sufficiently enjoyable that we will now have a monthly round table on stock ideas. Next week we have Tourmaline, week after Bob McNally. In between, Memorial Day is a week Monday, check the whites in your wardrobe and start yelling at the pool guy’s voicemail. Companies mentioned last night: Long Inventory E&P’s. We discussed oil volatility and beta skew as oil holds over […]

Few, As they say on the internet. Today we have a PORTFOLIO MANAGER SPECIAL in the presentation, which includes a full glorious ppt on the largest stocks in the market, and for bonus, a Sankey Recommendation on each stock. The oils look great on these charts. The recommendations on names like Google (BUY) or Disney (SELL) are purely quanatitive interpretation of charts, we do not cover non-energy related stocks fundamentally. So this is quantitative analysis, […]

Ripper chart, most bullish I have seen in 30 years following US E&P – quant analysis. Any chart available on request, any stock in the market… Share of S&P500 market cap vs share of S&P500 earnings. Black line is sellside. Blue line is buyside (share of market cap). Buyside is smarter than sellside, read the charts. Mi amigo US E&P, chart most bullish in history; Oxy, PXD, COP, FANG, APA, Hes.. Unprecedented bullish chart, buy […]

The attached note started as a focus on Coterra, the $22bn market cap combination of two US E&Ps, Cimarex and Cabot, one oily, the other gassy, that merged and just started trading as $CTRA in late 2021. In the note you will find the rank data: the value destruction for shareholders of the US oil exploration and production (E&P) industry in their giant shale oil science experiment 2010-2019. Line from the note: “from 2006-2019, the […]

This week, a three page thematic overview, followed by supporting charts. First the text, then the charts. ~ Noted refinery explosion last evening, no deaths reported, at ExxonMobil’s small (“only” 60kb/d) Billings Montana niche refinery that is important for local balances. Would drive margins higher for Midcon players such as HollyFrontier, Coffeyville, Delek, and West Coast PBF, and might accelerate ExxonMobil’s long standing attempts to sell the plant (price always said to be too high). […]

After a very enjoyable Strategy Session with the impressive Kimmeridge Team yesterday, I had a one hour debrief with a Senior US Government Official with long energy experience yesterday evening: Notes from deep Washington source. Watch out for oil exports from Chevron’s Tengiz, reports that 3 cargoes (of 3 tendered) were unsold yesterday. The oil is transported from Kazakhstan across the CPC pipeline in Russia and mixed with Russian crude before loading at a Russian […]

Huge shock. Particularly to major European clients that had stated their house view: no invasion. Their view was weeks of noise, no invasion. What will happen to this extraordinary chart? We see demand destruction at $120/bbl, and think oil prices will continue to go to that level of demand destruction if US demand remains as strong as it currently is. Lagging US economic strength and upcoming summer speak to ongoing demand strength, even if it […]

Having featured a fellow independent researcher on Strategy Session last night – Doomberg – today’s note is a highlight reel of other people’s research. But of course first, Friday you demand jokes, and we are not here to disappoint clients. I used to play the triangle in a band, but it’s just one ting after another. I swallowed a dictionary, and now I have thesaurus throat. My boss arrived at work in a new Lambourghini, […]

Hi I am just checking in to assure you I survived the Houston NAPE conference, landmen and all, but am still on the road, headed to New Orleans. This week has been discombobulated – my initial flight on Tuesday was cancelled by United, I rushed to Newark, made the 2pm, just made dinner in Houston, made the NAPE conference yesterday, made dinner with a Nebraska CEO, went to the after party rave and here I […]

Happy New Year! Dan Loeb was complaining on Twitter that we hardly got any time off here: “Even prize fighters get 6 months off between fights, NFL players a week. Only 2 days off between years makes me want to join a union”. He was also welcoming New York’s new mayor; I am completely with Dan on both these matters. By the same token it feels as if neither of us will be joining Gettr.com […]

Very tricky to call, indeed! OPEC/Saudi surely will act if markets don’t bounce – my Middle East Intelligence says Saudi is worried about the price but wants to see the market follow through Monday. Fascinating real-time week coming up, we think there might be a unilateral cut by Saudi if the market continues to collapse. But for OPEC to do a cut, is extremely complicated. The easy out, given they have to do something unless […]

Saturday: there’s an unrelenting element to being a stock analyst. “You are only as good as your last note.” The need to constantly publish is relentless. With that in mind, it has been my intention to write an oil book. Something that can sit on a shelf. One of my favourite oil books is Anthony Sampson’s “The Seven Sisters”, which provides a brilliant, and concise, history of the seven major oil companies that formed the […]

Just spent £100 on a belt that doesn’t fit. Huge Waist. The misuse of the word literally drives me figuratively insane. The sky was looking ominous so I asked Siri, “Surely, it’s not going to rain today?” She replied, “Yes it is, and don’t call me Shirley.” That was when I realized I’d left my phone on Airplane mode. Major geopolitical tension continues in Europe against the backdrop of natgas prices trading at $25/mmbtu before […]

Heading to a group meeting with new EOG CEO Ezra Yacob this afternoon, this note takes a look back at the history of the company from my perspective. As the oil age continues, and as global oil supply gets visibly tight against the remarkable 100mb/d of demand globally (>1,000 barrels per second of global oil consumption), we think the market will begin to pay more attention to inventory levels and reserves replacement rates. There was […]

Quick note today as I have two events. One of my favourite parties, this morning an NY Marathon party in Carroll Gardens adjacent to the running route, which starts at 9am. It is the only party I know of that starts at 9am on a Sunday. And then to the NY Giants game playing the Raiders at Meadowlands 1pm. You can get there easily, getting out involves multiple trains. It is a family tradition to […]

Huge week for earnings on deck this week, just about 50% of the market cap of the S&P500 reports,  and to celebrate, the traditional Sunday Sankey is back with a full presentation attached. Sample slide: Bloomberg lists Kuwait’s oil production capacity as 3.08mb/d. In the slide shown in the Sunday Sankey presentation today from the authoritative MEES, Kuwait’s production capacity has dropped by more than 500,000 b/d over the past three years to just 2.63mn […]

Key points: Clients are focused on OPEC spare capacity and demand growth, but also, rightly, North American supply growth, which is the most price elastic component of global oil supply. Halliburton results yesterday naturally raise questions over US production growth; the company stated that it sees 20% rise next year in North American revenues, which includes “solid pricing gains”. This would imply Halliburton expects US E&P capex to be ~10% higher next year; not a […]

Marketing in The City – Denbury highlighted by Europe Being long (client) and short (Pioneer $PXD) European natural gas Europeans worried as always about US E&Ps growing – EOG seen as likely to ramp A note on re-repricing options with special dividends Shell profit winning & warning – but no unknown unknowns HAPPY HOUR TONIGHT WITH KATHLEEN KELLEY – OPEC EXPERT. 5PM Eastern. Marketing in The City of London yesterday, I sat down to lunch […]

Greetings from London, You live in the UK and have avoided death by COVID? FT: In the UK, 4m households were unable to afford to adequately heat their homes even before the latest energy price crisis. Some 10,000 deaths a year are linked to living in a cold home, according to the charity National Energy Action. If that represents around 100 deaths per day over the average of four winter months, high energy prices are […]

Enjoy the last weekend of summer, beautiful day here in London, readying ourselves for next week with a slew of oil corporate oil & energy newsflow in “conference season” starting with this week’s traditional “Lehman Conference”, as we oil old schoolers know it. For my entire career, the Lehman conference has occupied the oil/energy week after Labor Day. Post-Labor Day, for me, as a research analyst, opens the Wall Street year, back when it culminated […]

Welcome to mid-August, I am taking it easy for a couple of weeks. Good week ahead for fishing offshore Ixtapa on the Pacific. Really nothing on the calendar next week for oil analysts unless we stretch to retail such as Walmart, Home Depot, and Target, all reporting. Roblox is an interesting company. A call last week from the White House for OPEC+ to produce more oil and for the FTC to investigate high pump prices […]

August is upon us, with results effectively over, I am back in Brooklyn having dropped Harry for pre-season college soccer in Boston, trip review from a gasoline perspective closes this note. Speaking on sons and August, yesterday Max, who is yet to go back to college in Atlanta, was on CNBC. That is him ludicrously stationed in shot in the background of my Fast Money segment, pretending to work. You can see the clip here. […]

In this note: the analyst who simply thanked Pioneer, with Devon, Oxy, and ConocoPhillips all cheering battered oil investors, and really strong macro news for Big Integrated Oils (ExxonMobil etc) with their lagging exposure to soaring global natgas prices that are pushing up refining margins. Global demand strength is also bullish for the oils, regardless of the market’s deep reluctance to capitalize OPEC market management. First, Tellurian offers shares: 35,000,000 shares of its common stock […]

Just as your correspondent was pondering the upside surprises in capital discipline and cash return to shareholders from “4P” premium Permian pure-plays Pioneer ($PXD) and Diamondback ($FANG) announced yesterday evening, and waiting for a similar positive result from ConocoPhillips, than my friends at HollyFrontier announce a $1.8bn deal to marry perennial bridesmaid Sinclair Oil, the MidCon refiner that started life in 1916 and has been private since 1976. HollyFrontier is on a roll, completely counter-cyclically […]

We found ourselves standing on the North Slope, Alaska, above the Arctic Circle, surveying the endless flat tundra. There there is no sunlight from October to early March; total darkness over half the year. For the rest of the year, the sun does not go down – no darkness. That place, my friend, is Far North. The nearest city is Anchorage, 1,000 miles south, itself as distant as Perth Australia; palpably remote; strange and distant […]

SAVE the DATE: Sankey/Jan Stuart summit, Vienna, December 2021 OPEC meeting. Likely December 2nd.  World Petroleum Conference in Houston December 5th – 9th forces their hand to an early in-person Vienna meeting early December. I plan on attending both, and Jan and I will host a “thought leadership” drinks party in Vienna on the eve of the meeting. Join please! Save the date. 2nd Spoke to a big player who trades Utilities, and he said […]

Reading back on my Sunday note, I did a horrible job of highlighting the link to the “Oils share of the S&P500 earnings vs oil’s share of the S&P500” presentation that was attached. One key highlight was to buy Pioneer and EOG and to be negative on Oxy. The non-consensus call was bullish Apache. We were also cautious refiners. Here is the note which is a short presentation of all the charts. This is a […]

Fun fact: Australia’s biggest export is boomerangs. It’s also their biggest import. What actor could never play Quasimodo? Humpfree Bogart Doctor: Your body ran out of magnesium. Me: 0mg. The urge to sing The Lion Sleeps Tonight is just a whim away. A client writes: Paul! One day doesn’t make a market, but your next letter can’t come soon enough. Is the run in oil done? Dear clients, Key bear triggers were twofold yesterday. First, […]

At the last in-person Shell analyst meeting at the NYSE, I raced the head of upstream in a life-sized side-by-side Pennzoil NASCAR simulator and then moved on to talk to CEO Ben van Buerden. One key message: sell the Permian. My argument was that Shell would never be recognized as a Permian player, would never get credit, even if they out-performed the industry, and valuations were riding high. Shell should be a mega-project player in […]

The note today is delayed by England vs Croatia, thankfully the currently ongoing Austria vs North Macedonia game is not imperative for me to watch.  There are some great slides in today’s presentation. For example on how solar projects do not deliver their IRR, on worrying Indian oil demand, on the global petchem balance by company, and our new mega-theme, of new young CEOs following through on our “Renaissance” theme of US E&Ps. This new […]

The ostrich school of analysis would suggest that I resolutely defend my short term bear call on oil and oil stocks made only at lunchtime on Monday, but the fact is that no sooner had I hit send on the email to clients and website post, than the short term thesis caught fire and sank like Iran’s biggest warship just did: June 2, 2021, Associated Press: “The largest warship in the Iranian navy caught fire […]

OIL RISK HIGH. We have an OPEC meeting tomorrow, and the word is that Iran is pumping into storage on anticipation of successful negotiations with the Biden administration, which, for reasons I do not fully understand, is very keen to make a nuclear deal. This will allow Iran back into global oil markets. We understand that OPEC is warning Iran not to flood the market, and Iran is saying “we are going to flood the […]

Watching Iran, but 1mb/d of oil exports are already in the market. Huge week ahead for ExxonMobil, with the Shareholder Meeting and board vote on Wednesday this week. We wrote about it on Thursday, see the note on www.sankeyresearch.com or emailed. Noted that Halliburton shareholders rejected the company’s pay proposal last week, which is encouraging. The pay of oil executives relative to shareholder returns has been an abomination for years. Executives should try a few […]

Good day, The week ended with the guided announcement from Marathon Petroleum that its deal with Seven & i to sell the massive Speedway gasoline retail network had closed for $21bn cash, and upside guidance from Marathon Petroleum on an imminent Dutch Auction for $4bn of stock, within a $10bn open buyback authorization. It was uncertain how much debt would be paid down, but that was announced light at $2.5bn. MPLX, the 63% MPC-owned MLP, […]

*INVITATION * Today * 10am ET * – Happy Coffee with Li-Cycle CEO Ajay Kochhar. Ajay is extremely strong on all things to do with his business, of re-cycling lithium-ion batteries. By extension, he is extremely strong on batteries, EVs, and particularly Li-Ion factories. He is absolutely at ease with battery market dynamics. Join a conversation with Sankey + a few clients. Yesterday the company announced an agreement with Ultium Cells, a joint venture of […]

Noted: private equity selling down $PXD, and Antero $AR issuing. No sooner had we highlighted the Goldilocks oil market, with strong refining margins implying good demand, the potential for further upside in demand from COVID recovery especially in global jet fuel, and the “Saudi Put” back in effect since January, than a bunch of Russian hackers show up and spoil the fun. The issue is that major negative volatility events like this are negative – […]

Happy Mother’s Day! $AMTX – this small-cap generated way more response than my more-or-less throwaway comment on Friday ever intended, highlighting of a Twitter post. It was about related party transactions and we said it read poorly. Because it did. Apologies if your Friday was adversely affected, there is certainly hedge fund interest here. We have some strong bulls on the stock, who have done way more work than I have. The CEO is controversial, […]