RD Shell

With attention on a major oil announcement by President Biden today, widely leaked as a further Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) release that amounts to stuffing a leaking dam with non-sustainable paper towels, we have been highly critical of the Biden Administration’s Energy policy. We have also slammed the European Union and UK, notably starting with our 2021 thematic note “Britain & Germany vs the USA” that foresaw a European gas crisis far before Russia ever […]

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 […]

Refining getting worse LNG export developer Tellurian whacked as it struggles to finance “by mid-2022”. It’s Q3 2022. As the share price falls, financing from the at the money issuance facility becomes even more problematic. Macro influencer Luke Gromen on Happy Hour Fedex profit warning Fiscal 2Q23 guide $2.75 vs cons $5.46 (!!!) Xi-Putin As we feared refining is getting worse. China export quotas as we highlighted yesterday have further pressured weak Asian margins that […]

We are looking for a big fat gasoline demand bounceback number this week in the DOE data, seeing as this morning my Deli guy told me the DOE gasoline numbers are understated. Thanking him, I noted that DINO management (HollyFrontier) confirmed on their results call yesterday that gasoline demand is at worst around 5% below 2019 (not 2020, as appears in the DOE) levels, and in some of their markets – and they have a […]

This note outlines the mega-themes that are emerging mid-way through oils’ reporting season. We listened to a lot of calls, read A LOT of transcripts, and distill it here, for your Saturday afternoon reading by the pool on your yacht. Last evening I reflected that this weekend I was as likely to bit hit by a massive piece of falling Chinese space debris, as to win the mega-millions and get my own yacht with pool. […]

Good to see oil holding, we have broken the bottom of our $110/bbl-$150/bbl range for Brent this summer, but news out of China is positive both in terms of higher oil demand and re-iterated low oil product export quotas. These product export quotas are some 40% below last year levels and underline that Beijing is moving away from energy-intense processing and exports, prioritizing its own air quality and environmental issues. Quotas are cut from 37Mt […]

Briefly noted: Gazprom shares plummet -25% as shareholders reject record dividend plan Uniper, largest German buyer of Russian gas, shares plummet -18% as it says it is receiving just 40% of volumes ordered from Gazprom After two weeks in the dark, with no weekly oil data published, the US Department of Energy released the backlog yesterday. The DOE was keen to stress the “systems outage” was not a hack. Better not be, DOE manages emergency […]

Our main concern about the Freeport LNG export outage is that it inspires some “consumer hero” politician in Washington to justify an export ban on oil & gas. The price impact of a cut to gas exports was dramatic yesterday, -15% on spot Henry Hub; Freeport said it would be out for 90 days, end 2022 full resumption. It is imperative that Washington understands the importance of free trade and the role in US oil […]

Tomorrow Zoom Strategy Session: Rich Voliva, CFO HollyFrontier. Thursday Jun 9, 2022 05:00 PM ET Register in advance for this meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0kduyprj4uHNTcVO53YRKHbhYSRWHUiIX1 Tonight, quick meeting with Uzi, and Blake, CEO and IR of Delek. I had texted about the story in Tradewinds that they were getting into Jones Act shipping. Apparently they bought a couple of barges that are “not material, especially not in the context of today’s margins”. Lucked into a quick catch up […]

Wednesday already! Tomorrow we have the legendary Mr Bob McNally on Strategy Session. Author of Crude Volatility, a terrific history of global oil prices, Bob is one of the most experienced, thoughtful, connected, entertaining, and outspoken oil analysts of the past 20 years that we have known him. Register in advance for this Premium Event, tomorrow, Thursday, 5pm ET 6/2/22: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUud-iopzIjHtwxZSBacic_3OqJmo5vAzQj ~ The news that Tullow and Capricorn (formerly Cairn) are to merge brings together […]

Tonight, in conversation, the CEO of Tourmaline, Mike Rose, carrying an extremely high reputation. Also CFO Brian Robinson, and Scott Kirker Chief Legal Officer. We also really like IR Jamie Heard, who clearly gets it. 5/26, 5PM EST – Sankey Strategy Session: Tourmaline Oil (TOU) CEO, CFO, CLO, IR Register in advance for this meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAtd-qgrTgiGt1U3rdbkLIZZZRt5VcpfcKR 6/2, 5PM EST – Sankey Strategy Session Bob McNally, President, Rapidan Group Register in advance for this meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUud-iopzIjHtwxZSBacic_3OqJmo5vAzQj […]

Happy May Day Sunday, Today in partnership with Greg Bordelon of Isentropic Capital, we publish a note on natural gas markets by way of thesis overview to a theme that we will continue to pursue. The note is long graphics, and particularly interesting on US markets. If you only want to read half, read the second US half. It is as noted graphic intense. European gas markets are fundamentally far more un-analysable than US right […]

First quarter reporting season is always a crazy flurry, and this one is no different. To add to the excitement, just as I sat back yesterday having published on Antero, news broke that Elliott Associates had gone activist on Suncor. We had Hess IR Jay Wilson on Strategy Session. Hess could be worth $200/share on a five year view, at $100/bbl oil. For sure, Guyana is just about the only major global oil supply growth. […]

This LNG round up with Gordon Shearer (Poten & Partners guru) from Thursday night took longer to write and I got tangled in the SLB results, which came in okay – readers will know I am not pushing service companies but love oils… “to 10% of S&P500!” Chatting to a client with Midstream expertise before Gordon Shearer, LNG expert, came on Strategy Session Thursday evening, the view was that Kinder Morgan results were decent owing […]

The only good number in oil is the oil price The only good demand number in oil is refining margins The only barrier of entry to being an oil analyst is units You are only as good as your last call CNBC want me on this afternoon – unusually they booked me two weeks ago – for the second anniversary of oil prices going negative. Let me go to the grave saying I called for […]

This note starts with some near term Iraq production and export analysis, and works backwards through the short term political history, and long term political history, of the country, in the context of oil. Bottom line, Iraqi political instability continues, but oil production has steadily risen over the past 15 years to around 4.3mb/d – an all-time historic high for Iraq – and can likely rise a few more 100kb/ds, certainly in the medium term. […]

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 […]

Tonight PBF management on Strategy Session, 5pm for a tight hour. RSVP. I was at the Knicks vs Nets game last night with a global oil executive; combined with conversations with ConocoPhillips management Tuesday, some brief points. First, Shell profit warning this morning. Break it up. We would like to see a global LNG & gas and power trading powerhouse, a downstream “high carbon” operation with refining, chemicals and retail, a deepwater company. We don’t […]

This Thursday 7th April, Strategy Session with PBF Senior Management 5pm – RSVP Tonight – ConocoPhillips senior management in town for informal sellside drinks Tomorrow, DC hearing, House Energy and Commerce “Gouged at the Gas Station: Big Oil and America’s Pain at the Pump.” In oil, the excitement this morning is New York jet fuel prices going off the scale, part of the theme we talked about over the past couple of weeks, especially after […]

Big Shot, Big Short moment. Nickel suspended at $100,000 per tonne on the London Metal Exchange. That means that today a Nickel (5c coin) is worth 12.5c, given it is 5g in weight and 25% nickel. The other 75% of a Nickel is copper, by the way. It’s being reported that Chinese entrepreneur Xiang Guangda – known as “Big Shot” – had a large short position on the LME through his company, Tsingshan Holding, the […]

Strategy Session Tonight, Mark Viviano & Megan Hays of activist Kimmeridge. A former Portfolio Manager at mega-player Wellington Management, Mark leads the first public/private active funds at Kimmeridge, one of the top activist managers in the oil space. Megan Hays has joined Kimmeridge after 15 years of IR experience including Concho and Cimarex, and even allowing for that length of experience, still recently rated as one of Hart Energy’s “40 under 40.” Please click this […]

Extraordinary times: In the great energy regression that has massively further regressed with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it was somewhat surreal to watch Chevron’s Colin Parfitt (VP Midstream) conclude at the company’s analyst meeting yesterday at the NYSE, that we need more export capacity in the US, particularly for natural gas, and for the company then to confirm $10bn of spending on New Energy Ventures over the next decade, on hydrogen, carbon capture, and […]

Strategy Session this week 2/24, 5PM EST – Arjun Murti, Warburg Pincus, ConocoPhillips board member.  As lead oil analyst and then head of research for Goldman Sachs, Arjun made the greatest oil call in the history of the sellside, predicting $100/bbl oil in the early 2000s at a time when oil traded around $25/bbl and had never traded above $40/bbl. He was right for the right reasons. Now publishing a Substack “Superspiked”, Arjun is one of […]

Strategy Session this tonight 4:30pm with Joe Gorder, Valero Chairman & CEO; Lane Riggs President & COO; Jason Fraser, EVP, CFO; Homer Bhullar, VP IR & Finance. https://www.sankeyresearch.com/2022-refining-conference/ After big volume (Permian) growth numbers from ExxonMobil and Chevron over the past week, today ConocoPhillips held the line with capex guidance in line with previous guidance at $8.2bn. CEO Ryan Lance has said that the company will grow when there is no spare capacity in the […]

What’s going on the market? The Intelligent Investor is back from extended sabbatical and he/she/they is furious. Key current trading ideas: Long Shell into results tomorrow. Long Suncor into results tonight. Stock has lagged CNQ badly, one month, three months, six months, one year. We had strong downstream chat from Suncor’s EVP of downstream Kris Smith on our refining conference, which continues tomorrow with Joe Gorder’s Valero, RSVP. SU has key differentiation from CNQ in […]

Before we argue that Big Cap tech can stabilise the market here, on a fast & personal take of last week’s and next week’s earnings, in recognition that we need to focus on mega-themes, the latest population data from China is extremely important. NYT January 17th, 2022: China announced on Monday that its birthrate plummeted for a fifth straight year in 2021, moving the world’s most populous country closer to the potentially seismic moment when […]

Make a good call, they always play out really fast and leave you wondering what’s next. We left last year predicting a bad January but a good year for markets, and a good year for oils. Markets have been quite the ride, notably yesterday the NASDAQ was crazy, while the oils have been good. In our cross plot of performance shown below, it is clear that some 2021 laggards are ripping this year, notably refining. […]

I got up thinking about a quick look at Russia for the Morning Note; ALMATY, Jan 6 (Reuters) – Fresh violence erupted in Kazakhstan’s main city on Thursday after Russia rushed in paratroopers to put down a countrywide uprising in one of Moscow’s closest former Soviet allies. Police in the main city Almaty said they had killed dozens of rioters overnight into the early hours of Thursday morning. The authorities said at least 18 members […]

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 […]

Not talking about COVID, just to say I am feeling 100% fine. This Omicron will hopefully be the largest and fast mass vaccination programme in history, whether by God or Government. Nice chart this morning from Greg Wachsteter, who kindly said I could publish. No more comment on COVID, I think the conclusion here is pretty obvious; this chart is therefore bullish S&P Energy. Sankey-Laffer curves. The presentation attached today, made me think what a […]

It was a long trip to Texas, and it is good to be back in Brooklyn; this note is a short reminder to myself where markets are, having been running around. For example my time on Wall Street this past week, was Wall Street, Midland. What a comeback for oil last week, since the brutal air drop after Thanksgiving. We need to establish a level here, most would consider that the oil equity group is […]

Busted flat in Baton Rouge, waiting for a train… ExxonMobil has called a historic snap analyst meeting for this Wednesday 1st December. The first meeting under a new, externally appointed, CFO, former Diageo executive, Kathryn Mikells. She is now in charge of finance, strategy, communication, and investor relations (IR). Kathy already refreshed her first earnings call, Q3 2021, interjecting, freely commenting, communicating; the company also gave clear guidance over what to expect from this update […]

Presentation today, and commentary below: Thursday evening annoucement: major sellside meeting by ExxonMobil: “updates to their company plan” on Wednesday December 1st. Sellside invited. Virtual. Big deal for ExxonMobil. We had pondered how ExxonMobil would manage their annual capex announcement, due in December, vs their traditional strategy update due next March. We pondered if plans would be ready in time for a December update, given the scale of board and management change that has occurred […]

Continuing our Saturday history series, a single story about what I learned at the St Regis hotel in January 2004: Bad corporate newsflow comes in waves Good management get on great with their employees Don’t be emotional in business; this is the big leagues In 2004 I found myself at the St Regis Hotel, the classic Big Oil event venue in Midtown Manhattan at Park Avenue and 51st, at a major Shell event. I was […]

BREAKING Major European gas news, Germany regulator suspends approval of Nordstream 2. Bullish news on Shell Corning glance on high glass prices BREAKING Watchers.News: Natural gas prices in Europe soared again on Tuesday, November 16, 2021, as the German Federal Network Agency — Bundesnetzagentur — suspended the process of certifying the new Russian gas pipeline called Nord Stream 2. The pipeline was completed in September 2021 and is designed to bypass Ukraine and connect Russia […]

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 […]

Bearish DOE and dodgy Q3 oil results, with a Shell miss and disaster at EQT, not helping the sector Horrendous results from EQT as expected – increases quarterly loss from 2020 Q3, to $1.98bn? Abysmal… AR re-iterating the client bull’s $35/share target Shell miss might mean bad news for XOM tomorrow, but results are irrelevant: a Shell rant Note Big Oil CEOs in DC today for a roast. One suggestion to the executives: if they […]

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 […]

Mega-theme: the backlash against the nonsense elements of ESG Mega-theme: LNG Friday, so here’s a longer joke (?): Conspiracy theory: The UK climate protest group Insulate Britain are so completely bone-headed and infuriatingly disruptive (blocking the key London ring road, M25), that I can only assume they are a British Government/MI6 counter-environment group that is working to increase public opposition to the environmental movement in the sensitive run up to COP26 on 1st November in […]

We are moving into earnings season, with financials reporting this week, starting with JPM and BlackRock on Wednesday, rounded out Friday by Goldman Sachs. These are dynamic times in global geopolitics. This month, as oils report earnings, we finish the month with: G20 30th October in Rome, we noted to watch Xi-Biden, but Xi continues to stay home Right after, 1st November the climate summit COP26 takes place in Glasgow. We are in a new […]

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 […]

Jolly Sunday to you, Global energy crisis: Having written at length about this eight days ago in the note “Germany & UK vs the USA”, all week I have been reading about the global energy crisis led by the UK and Germany. Everyone makes the same points, last year cold global winter leading to low natgas storage, lack of wind in Europe, nuclear shutdowns, Asia squeeze, Russia squeeze etc. The one I talked about in […]

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 […]

With EOG rounding out oils’ earning season after the market yesterday, we had the final disappointment as oil prices test downside support levels breaking $70/bbl (Brent, WTI already broke into the upper $60s.) Expectations of an excess cash return special or splashy buyback announcement by EOG were dashed. Nothing. Just good free cashflow in a $70/bbl+ tape and the promise to pay down more debt by 2023. This is not the first disappointing Q2 earnings, […]

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 […]

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 […]

When we wrote The Renaissance Thesis of US E&P in 2017, we argued that oil companies had to stop pursuing growth, reduce capex, increase returns and free cashflow and stop hedging. We also highlighted that management pay relative to performance was an insult to shareholders (those shareholders that remain). The anti-hedging argument was originally made successfully to the refiners. In fact, the overall thesis on E&P was based on success earlier in the decade, changing […]

Greetings, It is all about the presentation this week; please click on the attached file for a look at what is in store for the week ahead – earnings; OPEC chat; what to buy when US natgas prices hit $4/mmbtu, which they did this past week; factor performance disconnection; and our only solution since we wrote The Renaissance Thesis of US E&P in 2017, namely hard cash return to shareholders. These oils have to bribe […]