Oily E&P

With markets in flames like something out of a Naked Gun movie, Central Bankers the inept cops, rioting traders burning and looting, we continue our post Labor Day theme of advising on fire prevention and avoiding arrest. So: it is sadly time for another negative earnings revision cycle.  We rolled up over 60 US-based energy companies covering upstream, midstream, downstream, integrateds, and oilfield service to see get the booking mugshot for the group. After chasing […]

We mourn the passing of Steve Chazen on 23rd September, he will be remembered as a legend. It was a privilege to have known him. Rest in Peace. We wrote the History of Oxy in December 2021, which includes the almost 30 year impact of Steven Chazen (joined in 1994, died as Chairman 2022). ~ Bill Bishop at Sinocism: For those who have not heard the rumors, Xi [Jinping, China President] has been supposedly removed […]

Brooklyn Cop at 844th Precinct accuses innocent Sankey of being “weird-looking” “They” got caught speeding yesterday: fast unwind of long natgas / short refining trade Terrific Happy Hour with Jay Saunders and a couple of other hitters last night; introducing Scope 4 Jennison portfolio manager (PM) Jay Saunders is very popular in the market, you can tell that by the players that dialled in to participate in his call yesterday. He co-runs the Jennison Natural […]

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 […]

Rest in Peace, Queen Elizabeth II. Long live the King! The rainbows were just amazing. One US media outlet described the Queen as the last human link to Great Britain, the Britain of Empire, such as it was when she became Queen in the 1950s. This resonated with me, the Queen with Churchill in photos, for example. Her passing bought back memories of my father, another link to Empire, who left this mortal coil last […]

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 […]

Observations on the “Inflation Reduction Act”: We read all 730 pages, with 198 being on healthcare, and conclude that, rather than calculate an “Excel told me” analysis, but rather, because of the surprise announcement of the Bill, the stock market provides an early indicator of the Bill’s likely impact: we show you key stock price performance since the Bill was shock-announced by Senators Manchin & Schumer on June 27th: We temper this market reaction. We […]

Expecting a recession. Most market participants worry about a recession. No less than Goldman Sachs is clearly concerned: Bloomberg 8/29/22 Goldman Says Buy Commodities, ‘Worry About Recession Later’ •             Slowdown risks outside Europe seen ‘relatively low,’ bank says •             Equities could suffer as raw materials gain, analysts forecast We are all aware of the obvious mega-problems, that Putin is pushing Europe into a depression, China is straight-up missing in action, and the rapid expansion of […]

It’s a time of year when the Wednesday 10:30am US government Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration (DOE EIA) weekly oil data matters. We normally disdain trying to jerk our knee faster than the army of commodity analysts who jerk their knees as fast as possible to DOE print, some who go so far to send out the entire tables verbatim (thanks!) but this week, for fun, we are competing for the fast note reaction […]

So I am back in Brooklyn after vacation (Nizuc Resort, Cancun), needless to say muttering and grumbling to myself. We left some calls hanging before the week away, updated in this note. It was a week this past week where performance reverted to year-to-date performance (see first chart);  we are still bullish US natgas, led by AR, bullish Oxy led by Warren Buffett, bullish the US oil sector on the structural improvement in the companies […]

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 […]

Tomorrow KelleyKelly Hour: Kathleen Kelley on OPEC. Frank Kelly on Washington DC – lots of action there. View share from clients on results and what they expect next. Tomorrow Thursday 4th August 5pm Eastern. Register for this meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUkc-qvqjgrH9NWL5mVuMMR2AyR3q1cZrtm We increasingly think that we will favour buyback-heavy oils going into the second half, with our year starting, as always, day after Labor Day. What happens next? The Big Oils are all singing from the same […]

Signature stock: Diamondback strong results, high cash return Signature stock: Devon strong results, high cash return Pelosi to Taiwan: the Administration has strong foreign policy and is pushing China I spoke to a senior government official with knowledge of Foreign Policy yesterday. We first agreed, that we are suffering “lingering COVID” where our recovery from a bout in the past weeks has persisted with non-debilitating symptoms, fatigue, etc – I had a similar conversation with […]

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 […]

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. […]

Hess came in on the money, for EPS this quarter, with some noise, but the long term value of Guyana just keeps getting bigger, and this is a remarkable play on the oil age pressing through 2030. Call today. The way things are shaping up in Europe, oil & gas resource in the Americas is severely under-valued. Guyana value is staggering, we have talked about Hess as a $200 stock long term. Besides the chronic […]

Regular readers may wonder: surely not Brooklyn Heights Promenade view of Manhattan above. Correct! I’m in Holbox, Yucatan, Mexico, where we nipped in for a look at “Tulum but with a great beach”. Getting to Cancun is a cinch from New York, three hours to pounding beach music and margarita bars at the hotel. We bypassed and got a car here. At Holbox, a sand spit/island (no rock base) that is also a nature preserve, […]

Greetings fellow earthlings, (Dow Jones WSJ 7/17/22) — Investors hoping a strong start to earnings season would jolt the stock market from its slump haven’t gotten much satisfaction. Early reports from U.S. companies have refocused attention on some of the biggest challenges facing businesses, from the threat of an economic slowdown to the pressure that rising costs are putting on corporate profits. JPMorgan Chase, Delta Air Lines and industrial supplier Fastenal are among those last […]

Good Day! You only get so many summers in life – a beautiful Sunday in mid-July, we should be at the beach or pondering the Wimbledon final. Hopefully you are on a yacht or at a swim-up bar as you read this. Here in Brooklyn Heights/Brooklyn Bridge Park they have recreated The Hill at Wimbledon with a big screen to watch tennis. Packed today. Tourists are returning en masse to New York. Week past: the […]

“Happy” Hour yesterday evening, an oil investor self-help group Big week for oils next week with Nordstream 1 and CPC shutdown decisions coming; Biden visits MBS Buffett buying yet more Oxy – he might go… all… the… way Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway filed notice of acquisition of 12m shares Occidental costing about $698m this week, giving it an 18.7% stake. Buffett had also purchased 9.9m OXY shares last week. Total stake is 175.4m shares worth […]

Back in Brooklyn, Happy July 4th weekend, insert my annual joke about my not recognising US independence, or Make America Great Britain Again. Harry and Meghan’s second kid is eligible to be a female US President, being born in California. Based on the recent candidates, not just the winning ones but the primaries, just about anybody will do better than the current political class. Enough, let’s take a quick look at the first half. As […]

Greetings from Hyde Park, We are back in London, Paris was controversial; Patricia considers it the greatest most wonderful place on earth, I get into arguments with Parisians, Selloff dynamics Hess reminder Phillips 66 Comments Morocco? Algeria It’s only rock ‘n’ and I’m 80 On the selloff: To me, the charts are not broken, but we nibbled 5% of the S&P500, then collapsed back to just over 4.1%. It is actually barely visible on the […]

How did we get murdered? Murdered? CHK took out 3.5% of their share count in just over a month.  Why am I in Paris, writing from St Germain des Pres? Where did it all go wrong? George Best used to tell the story of winning in a casino, while dating Miss World, and lying in a hotel room with her, empty champagne bottles spread across the room. The service guy entered, looked at the scene, […]

Action items: Every house in Morocco has a flat roof – but there all-but no visible solar. The projects here are mega; centralised. In Mexico you see a lot of panels. Our overall thought/dream has been that almost everything that uses energy should have a booster solar panel on it, attached to a battery. A “US Solar Buyer Consortium” is open-bidding $6bn for 7GW of US-built panels. Stalking horse to justify solar panel imports? Sure, […]

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 […]

Libya down by 1mb/d, maybe President Biden should visit? APA (Apache Oil) duster in Suriname is unfortunate for the marginal mega-bull case BP – like Shell, the non-alcoholic beer of big oils – sells out of Canadian Oil Sands but increases exposure to Western Canada offshore OKLAHOMA CITY, June 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Continental Resources, Inc. (NYSE: CLR) today announced that its board of directors (the “Board”) has received a non-binding proposal letter, dated June […]

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 […]

The concept of this note is “putting the band back together” in the theme of the Blues Brothers, as we see the potential for Chesapeake to merge with Southwestern. The Blues Brothers (1980): Jake: We’re putting the band back together. Mr. Fabulous: Forget it. No way. Elwood: We’re on a mission from God. We could get into a long and tearful reminiscence about US natgas legend and Chesapeake founder Aubrey McClendon (there is a tribute […]

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 […]

Happy Sunday in May, Never a bad thing. Fog this morning has lifted. Aramco results this morning rounded out a week when it became the largest stock in the world by market capitalization, surpassing Apple (not by free float, the Saudi government owns 94%). It  generated an enormous profit in a quarter when Brent averaged just about $100/bbl (actually $99.53/bbl Q1 average).   Refining earnings, as well as continued huge upstream earnings, will be even […]

We hosted Kaes Van’t Hof on Thursday’s Strategy Session. He is President and CFO of Diamondback Energy, a $24bn market cap/$30bn enterprise value pure play Permian US oil & gas exploration & production (E&P) company headquartered in Midland, Texas. Kaes is impressive; client feedback on his chat was strong. A young man, 36 years old, a former tennis pro out of California/USC with Dutch heritage (he and his father Robert became the first father and […]

Recommending BUYBACK PLAYS in this tape. We love the Diamondback approach of buybacks when the stock is cheap, specials when the stock is expensive. PREMIUM EVENT Sankey Strategy Session: Kaes Van’t Hof – President and CFO, Diamondback Energy This Thursday May 12, 2022 05:00 AM US Eastern Time. Register Here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0rcuyorD8rEtFYFdOdB79bWBSDY7MFzYzP ~ Legendary oil executive Steve Chazen on yesterday’s Magnolia $MGY conference call; “I think that the re-evaluation of the industry from 4% of the […]

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, […]

We had Kathryn Kelley and Bob Jonke on the Strategy Session yesterday. The story of how I managed to steal a major client’s wallet after we watched the Real Madrid vs Man City game with Kathryn was not repeated. It was an accident! Bob is worried about demand destruction and not super-bullish crude here. By contrast, Kathryn sees a 3mb/d shortage of oil in 2H which simply cannot be drawn from inventory, so something has […]

Sankey Strategy Session tomorrow evening: Bob Jonke, Oil trader for Engelhart CTP and Kathleen Kelley, Oil Market Expert aka “the OPEC Whisperer”. When: May 5, 2022 05:00 PM ET, Register in advance for this meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcofuqprzMuHd0CDoGbkzN6CiapFAdCg6k2 The Strategy Session this week will be in the context of what will be an extremely low-key OPEC meeting tomorrow with no press conference. Why no press conference? No comment on Russia. Simple as that. Bloomberg 5/4/22 The European […]

As anticipated, we saw strong results and cash return promises from several E&Ps reporting last evening, with capital discipline still a strong feature, alongside re-iterated volume targets (modest growth) and cost control. Impressive stuff. Several names now offer in excess of 10% cash return to shareholders. We believe this is sustainable, in most cases, with some concerns over inventory at Devon, Marathon Oil, and Coterra. Given we do not see any need to grow, but […]

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. […]

Quick read today as you got a longer note yesterday on LNG, and I am running late. Just pictures today, and Betsey asked to be on the cover of the Sunday Sankey so it’s a presentation. All the fun favourite charts. Key slides: next week’s earnings highlights starting with Valero. Relative performance, oils performance, high free cashflow yields, and a cash return chart that will be updated on a rolling basis through earnings. Earnings calendar […]

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 […]

Yesterday on CNBC I repeated the call that oil could get to 10% of the S&P500 based on the current dynamics in global energy. In the segment (link below), which was in the context of Netflix stock collapsing 35% yesterday (down hard further in the pre-market today), I gave a hack explanation of how a growth stock valuation can collapse. Basically, if the market is anticipating huge growth in a zero interest rate environment, the […]

Greetings from Maryland, With limited computing power at my disposal, and having been in thought since watching Elon on Thursday give a TED interview, followed by self-identified philosopher Alex Epstein on our Thursday Strategy Session, a couple of days off, a stroll in Annapolis, this is note is more ideas in 1,000 words, to make a picture, than pictures worth 1,000 words. No demand destruction because there is nowhere to go to substitute Therefore self-compounding […]

Strategy Session Tonight 5pm ET Alex Epstein “The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels”. Next Thursday 5pm Gordon Shearer, Poten & Partners, on Global LNG, save the date. Investment themes: long refining, long US oily E&P; rushing to do more work on US natgas but have loved Antero as our play; Tourmaline interesting, Energy Transfer interesting. Worried about oilfield service earnings upcoming, but clients want to buy them on operating leverage and global oil & gas […]

Thanks to those of you – Chuck Yates; and the classiest guy on Wall St, Mr Sully at Goldman – who called me regarding the Brooklyn subway incident/terrorism/whatever this morning; Patricia takes the subway all the time. She’s flying back from London right now, so totally safe. Very classy to call, thanks. Hope you too are all safe. Of course needless to say, my breezy offer to run any stock in the S&P500 earnings share […]

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 […]