* * * UPDATE * * *  Never let a crisis go to waste, Part II I’m rarely saddened by a piece I leave out of an eye raising take but I missed something in Moderna’s quarterly today... because it was waaaaay down at the bottom.  As a result, I must do a part 2. At the end of the financials and description of amazing work the company is doing, Moderna announced that the Chief Medical Officer will be leaving the company...

October is always a great month for oil and gas discussion, and today is no different as a torrent of earnings came out in the last 24 hours for Q3.  Some highlights: Exxon confirmed their dividend, which I'll admit was surprising. CNX released their earnings with absolutely 0 management comments, which is weird in the least and suspicious in the most (so much for subtlety). Oil hit my year end target of $35/bbl (Mark Rossano and I talk about...

The “favorite” comments I receive on posts are something to the effect of “stick to oil and gas, buddy.” Obviously, I offer to refund their subscription in merch and deeply consider their opinion of my topic choice. But the truth is, I have two children and I am very worried about them. And not only my children, but everyone’s children. And so, when the Covid lockdown came that not only ripped through oil and gas land but sidelined the economy...

There is no doubt that I was 2 months early when I said September 2019 would be the highest production month ever for U.S oil production. Budgets were constrained for Q4 (cash flow reasons) and Volumes and lateral lengths had plateaued while the underlying decline rates had increased dramatically. As it turned out, November 2019 was the all time high for U.S oil and it declined every month through March 2020 showing that oil growth for the country was no...

The sweepstakes continue as we eagerly await the next marriage proposal. Oil is $42, gas is stubbornly not moving, and companies are running out of runway. Witness SM’s stock performance today after announcing their Q2 update. “Cost control” means crushing service companies and laying off staff. “Change in working capital” means a reduction in accruals due to dramatically lower spending, expanding the time to pay payables and receiving all the receivables. But when you don’t do things, your production declines,...

Do you remember when Exxon was the world’s largest publicly listed company? Can you imagine how your stock portfolio would have done if you’d sold it all and invested in AAPL? Or AMZN? Or MSFT? Those companies now have market caps of $1.5 T. Exxon was briefly over $500 B in 2007. It’s now $187 B. And thus begins our discussion on ESG. Commodity businesses rely on a global price driven by all sorts of supply-demand factors and when supply...

The earnings onslaught continued yesterday and into this morning, and I think some of the writers in IR should train doctors on bedside manner. With the exception of TAFKAEncana, the glorious writing highlighting accomplishments made it hard to think that anything bad had happened. Reading some of the upgrade analyst reports, you would say “wow, these companies have really turned it around.” But that’s the advantage of putting your money where your mouth is. Seeing where some of the companies...

The artist formerly known as Encana announced its Q2 earnings and I give them some credit.  Sure, they went with the “Q2 was unprecedented, we are in this together, so proud of everyone, yada yada yada...” but, they also said this: The Company recorded a net loss in the second quarter of $4.4 billion. Results were impacted by the following items: A non-cash ceiling test impairment of $3,250 million, before-tax, primarily related to the decline in 12-month average trailing commodity...

This is a big week for earnings in oil and gas land. And sure, if you follow companies outside of E&P, earnings don’t seem to matter, free cash flow isn’t really a thing and stocks go up and to the right everyday (partly because the USD was depreciated 4% in July alone and there is literally no safe place to put your money as inflation eats the value). But, in the world of E&P, where the top line is solely...