Diversified

Breaking news: WSJ October 18th 2020 Pioneer Natural Resources is in talks to buy Parsley Energy, according to people familiar with the matter, as a wave of consolidation takes hold in the beleaguered oil patch. Word from the oil field is the deal was due to be announced last week and got sidelined by COP-CXO. (Twitter). M&A stories in the WSJ are considered the most reliable of any business new source. Last week they were […]

Good Day The Sunday Sankey is macro heavy but starts with the micro oil story of the past week and quite possibly next week: Conoco-Concho. The rumored (Bloomberg) takeover was covered in three consecutive notes last week, and is now rumoured (Bloomberg) to be imminent. We shall see. That starts, but there is a ton of macro stuff in the Sunday Sankey ppt. Take a look. As the market closed Friday, $EOG spiked, and the […]

When Kasparov beat Carlsen I cheered so much I lost my voice. Now I am a hoarse chess nut. Kermit the Frog playing Hamlet got great reviews. It was a ribbeting performance. My friend wants to dress as an island off the coast of Italy for Halloween. I told him not to be Sicily. Happy Hour Comments and Why is Concho selling itself? We had a real live oil trader to start Happy Hour last […]

$EOG was the name most speculated about as likely to MAKE a takeover in the wake of the Conoco-Concho story yesterday; the stock that reacted most was $XEC, perceived as the most likely next TAKE over company. Continental CLR is seen as needing to deal, $MRO too, $OVV potentially to offer a blizzard of stock, $FANG and Parsley $PE potentially to join the consolidation fray one way or the other; $CDEV is due to be […]

ConocoPhillips $COP for Concho $CXO does not generate the “why oh why” outrage of the seemingly ludicrous rumours at the time of Occidental for Anadarko, by any means. Last evening, just as we pondered a solidly in-line-with-expectations Q3 guidance from Diamondback $FANG, Bloomberg published a story claiming that ConocoPhillips is taking over Concho, which was a whole lot more exciting for a Tuesday evening, notwithstanding my wife Patricia getting liquidized chilli directly in her eye, […]

Obviously, the week ahead will be dominated by the twin horsemen of COVID and bailout. We are making history. In this note, XOM is now worth less than Jeff Bezos, even after his divorce. Nextera has become the largest energy stock in the US. We also show XOM compared to Big Tobacco, to show this is not all ESG. The oil market looks rough, as we had warned all summer, it would be post Labor […]

It was an especial pleasure to see a leader speaking at a podium with a TOTAL command of the current complex situation, with a complete grasp of facts and figures, a near-term and long-term vision that is both pragmatic and exciting. The fact that the entire presentation was delivered with charm and wit in the speaker’s second language, made it all-the-more impressive. I am of course speaking of TOTAL’s CEO Patrick Patrick Pouyanné , at the […]

Good news for the industry. Rationalisation. Where does it leave Cimarex and Marathon? We first outlined our “Renaissance of US E&P” thesis in 2017, arguing that the problem with US oil stocks was not the industrial opportunity, led by the greatest oil field in the world – the Permian, securely located in Texas adjacent to the world’s largest refining center. The problem at the time it was not the oil price, which was $50/bbl and […]

Back in the day, the Sunday Sankey had to go through a Big Bank approval process, and that effectively met the deadline for submission was Friday evening at 6pm. There was always a concern that something big would happen after 6pm on Friday and before the automatic release at 10am Sunday. On the Friday of the first Sunday Sankey in May 2016, we put the thing to bed, went home, and the newswires flashed “Saudi […]

Three analyst meetings in two weeks: BP, Apple, Tesla. Confirmed by Tesla Battery Day: the Big Oils need to pursue a strategy of “orderly liquidation” in line with our “Renaissance of US E&P” thesis. Cut capex, reduce growth, return cash to shareholders. Orderly liquidation. Shrink to grow value. We are advising a refiner to go private, we have been for years, arguably we have been for all refiners. No growth capex, buy back stock until […]

A client pointed out that DOW stock has been on a bit of a tear recently, while XOM cannot catch a bid. This is a reasonable point, and the same could be said of Phillips 66 PSX, which has also been languishing, despite its chemicals exposure. That stock shrugged off a bad 2019 for chemicals margins, which then got truly abysmal with COVID. Subsequently controversy/risk around the Dakota Access Pipeline has ailed PSX, with the […]

We can’t see a silver bullet to solve Oxy’s problems, and our analysis of the Chevron-Noble deal background underlines that. Continue reading

Highlights EOG profitability per employee… Continue reading

Good thing that Oxy reporting tonight “exceeded guidance and continued to deliver operational excellence” otherwise they might have reported an even more epically abysmal result. Even with the aforementioned exceeding and excelling, the company reported a net loss attributable to shareholders for Q2 2020 of $8.4bn, or $9.12/share. Excluding writedowns (why? they happen on a recurring basis), the adjusted loss was $1.6bn, or $1.76 per diluted share. Anyway, with Oxy having reported, Sankey Research can […]

In this week’s edition of the Sunday Sankey we bring you the mega-bear argument for tech (it’s a commodity business), comments on BP’s remarkable transition which coincided with continuing remarkable transition among US E&Ps – mostly. Tomorrow Oxy reports and there is a group that is now in the debt service zombie mode, which will fight to maintain production levels… to pay debt service. But on the positive side, PXD Pioneer took leadership on what Cimarex tagged “Shale 3.0”, see within. We were critical of EOG in this regard in a note published yesterday and linked within. Great stuff on China from Oilx, our favourite oil intelligence consultancy/data provider, and Saudi Arabia cuts production… in Iraq… in Iran? Amazing. Continue reading

The tone of EOG’s management on their Q2 earnings call came across all wrong, as did several of the strategic statements. CEO Bill Thomas opened with language such as “delivering more oil” “significant free cashflow in the quarter” ($200m on a $40bn stock) “exceeded expectations”; “rose to the challenge”; “testament to return focus culture”; “premium returns”; “most excited”; “increasing production”. Towards the end of the opening we got: “Our goal each year is to spend […]

If you ever wanted a sense of what it would be like to have your house in foreclosure, and have the neighbour tell you in passing they are moving permanently to a $200m yacht, yesterday was that day for oil analysts. Oil specialists’ darling ConocoPhillips surprised the market with its sales… and so did Apple, Amazon, and Facebook. Continue reading

News and debate around Oxy and Hess today, has us pondering NAV, especially in Guyana, but also in UAE and Algeria. Global Oils, we got ’em. Continue reading

Why didn’t we pursue this strategy BEFORE the crisis? Harry Hindsight with his take on OVV’s Q2 results. Continue reading

The market seems toppy, if it sells off on a judge ruling on the long-running debate over President Trump’s tax returns, which is what happened yesterday. The ruling extends the to-and-fro and is seen as unlikely to result in a release before the election. Yet the S&P500 sold off… but the NASDAQ, as ever, rose regardless. Later in the day, a potentially more market-unfriendly series of headlines somehow had less negative effect: CNBC reports Presidential […]

PSXP stock is getting hit hard on today’s surprise Dakota Access shutdown ruling, alongside Energy Transfer (ET) and Bakken players such as Contintental, OAS, WPX, NOG and diverse names such as MRO. Winners: Canadian suppliers, Permian and other Basins than Bakken, and in refining “Valero wins by not losing.” Of course in the grand scheme of things, the most environmentally-friendly way to move oil is by new pipeline, less by rail, least by truck. But […]

A big block of Apache ($APA) shares traded yesterday – just about 3% of the company of 10.8m shares at $13.50 a share, which was interesting with the breathless anticipation of their latest Suriname well. The stock closed down 3.75% at $13. Anticipation is high for the latest well results. APA acquired rights to Block 53 in ‘13. The company drilled two exploration wells, both dry holes. Popokai-1 was drilled in ’15, but no results […]