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How Did M-U Drillers Spend All Their Extra Cash in 2Q22?
Drillers (exploration and production companies, or E&Ps) were thrilled with record-high earnings and cash flow in the second quarter of this year. Soaring commodity prices and “strict financial discipline” on the part of oil and gas drillers resulted in pre-tax operating earnings and cash flows surging by 29% and 22%, respectively, from 1Q22. And 1Q22 was up too! So what did drillers, especially drillers in the Marcellus/Utica, do with all that extra cash? Did they pay down debt? Buy back shares of company stock? Issue higher dividends? Something else?
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After several weeks of anemic permit numbers for Pennsylvania, last week PA came roaring back by issuing 30 permits to drill new shale wells. Some 12 of those permits went to Coterra Energy for two pads in Susquehanna County. EQT (aka Rice Drilling) received six permits for a single pad in Greene County, and Chesapeake Energy also received six permits split between two pads–one pad in Bradford County and the other in Lycoming County.
Oil and gas companies have fallen into line over the past few years, bowing to pressure to play the silly games the left sets up, including generating reports on how much greenhouse gases (GHG) a company produces. The federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), an extremely arrogant organization, declares itself to be the arbiter of what is and is not acceptable for carbon dioxide and methane emissions. When oil and gas companies begin to play the game a little too well (winning the game), the left gets torqued off and attacks. Attack of the Big Green clones. Here’s an example from the Marcellus/Utica, involving Range Resources, of how Big Green attacks when companies begin to win the game…
Once upon a time, there was a “we’re all in this together” spirit with respect to cleaning up the environment and protecting Mom Earth. But then something happened, and common sense and civility went right out the door. The left elevated the climate to become its new religion and now brooks no dissent from its extreme positions. If you do not agree with the left, if you want to debate and call attention to and poke holes in arguments they make about the climate, you are labeled an apostate, a climate heretic, and banished (or worse). You likely don’t know about efforts by oil and gas companies, particularly in the Marcellus/Utica, to clean up the environment and make planet earth a better place to live. You don’t know about those efforts because the left silences Big Media and won’t allow it to report “the rest of the story,” as Paul Harvey used to say.
Range Resources, the very first company to sink a Marcellus Shale well back in 2004, issued its annual 2021-2022 Corporate Sustainability Report yesterday. “Sustainability” is Range’s terminology for ESG, or environmental, social, and governance. A couple of notable observations in this latest report: (1) Range has doubled its methane monitoring inspection system using LDAR from four times a year to eight times a year; and (2) Range has the lowest methane intensity, or percentage of methane emissions, in the entire Appalachian basin–according to a third party evaluator.
Range Resources delivered its second quarter 2022 update yesterday. The company made an amazing $453 million in profit during 2Q. On a conference call with analysts, CEO Jeff Ventura wasted no time in delivering a shot across the bow of the Bidenistas, saying, “Energy policy will need to be rooted in market realities. If infrastructure projects, namely pipelines and LNG terminals are not prioritized and given a reasonable regulatory review, then I believe it’s simply impossible to meet the growing global demand for reliable, safe and affordable fuels.” Ba-boom! On the wonkish side, Range’s top driller, Dennis Degner, discussed the company’s strategy of drilling new wells on existing pads. Sometimes Range returns to the same pad three times. A three-peat!
Wow! What a difference two years can make. At the dawn of the pandemic, the share price for publicly traded oil and gas stocks (in particular Marcellus/Utica drillers) was in the basement. With the pandemic now in the rearview mirror (we hope), and demand increasing for both oil and natural gas, the price of oil and gas has skyrocketed, and along with it, O&G companies are raking in the cash. How are M-U drillers using their newfound piles of cash to compensate investors?
Not all that long ago Cabot Oil & Gas (now Coterra Energy), Southwestern Energy, BKV Corporation, and Diversified Energy were all pure play drillers focused just on the Marcellus and/or Utica Shales. Today all of them own assets in other basins in addition to the M-U. However, the very first company to sink a Marcellus well (back in 2004), Range Resources, has gone the other way. Range used to own assets outside of the M-U but has, for over two years, been a pure play driller laser-focused on only the M-U. According to CEO Jeff Ventura, Range plans to keep it that way–laser-focused focused on the M-U.
We spotted a story on The Motley Fool investor’s website yesterday noting that several Marcellus/Utica publicly-traded drillers saw “double-digit” increases in their share price just yesterday, for a single day. The article highlights both Range Resources and Southwestern Energy. We started nosing around to see how the stock price for all of the big publicly-traded M-U drillers has performed this year, from the beginning of the year. It was an eye-opener. ALL of them are up from the beginning of the year. Most are up at least 75% in value since Jan. 1. A few have doubled in value, now up more than 100% since Jan. 1. We have the list below for how each one performed. Welcome to the bull market in oil and gas!
An article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette highlights and focuses on the financial performance for four of the Marcellus/Utica’s largest publicly-traded companies, including EQT Corp., Antero Resources, Range Resources, and CNX Resources, during first quarter 2022. Even though the price natural gas is fetching is higher than it’s been in 14 years, M-U drillers are losing money. Why? Hedges and derivatives–bad bets on where the price of gas would go and locking in prices much lower than what the market currently supports.