Rolling in Free Cash Flow, Range Resources Triples Share Buybacks
Range Resources issued its third quarter financial update yesterday and is holding a conference call today to discuss 3Q results. We will cover Range’s full quarterly update tomorrow (so we can grab excerpts from the conference call). In the meantime, the initial big news coming from Range is that the company is tripling its share buyback program to $1.5 billion using free cash flow. What is a share buyback?
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Expectations play a big role in investing. The financial markets do a lot of anticipating and forecasting and guessing about where a company or entire sector is heading. Such is the game being played right now with expectations for Marcellus/Utica shale gas companies and their forthcoming third quarter financial updates. Given the high price of natural gas during 3Q22, analysts expect shale gas companies to be swimming in free cash flow. The natural follow-on question is, what will they do with all of that extra cash?
Just nine new permits to drill shale wells were issued across the three Marcellus/Utica states for Sept. 26 to Oct. 2. Pennsylvania turned in the second week in a row of very low new permits–just three issued, all of them to different companies in different counties. Ohio issued just four new permits, with two of them going to Encino Energy in Carroll County. And West Virginia issued just two new permits, both to Southwestern Energy in Brooke County.
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?
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.