A weekly update on issues important to the oil and gas industry
Over the last year, deal activity in the Bakken has been steadily increasing after a challenging 2020. Eight of the nine deals, in the last twelve months, occurred in the last eight months as the price environment has turned more favorable. As the industry seems optimistic that the worst of COVID-19 is behind us, deal activity may continue to increase into next year, but there is always hesitation, especially with the Delta variant on the rise.
In the midst of the COVID pandemic, the rise of the Delta-variant, and general summer distractions, not a lot of attention has been given to the 117th Congress’ H.R. 1512 – aka the “Climate Leadership and Environmental Action for our Nation’s Future Act” or the “CLEAN Future Act.” The Act was first presented as a draft for discussion purposes in January 2020. After more than a year of hearings and stakeholder input, it was introduced as H.R. 1512 in March 2021. Of particular interest to the Oilfield Water Management sector, is Section 625 of the Act. In that section, the Environmental Protection Agency would be ordered to determine whether certain oil and gas production byproducts, including produced water, meet the criteria to be identified as hazardous waste. The legislation in fact, mandates that the EPA must make its determination within a year after the Act becomes law. Read what Section 625 might mean for Oilfield Water Management industry participants.
Mercer Capital has its finger on the pulse of the minerals market. An important trend has been the rise of mineral aggregators, which have largely supplanted the trusts as the primary method of publicly traded minerals ownership. Due to a variety of corporate structures (including master limited partnerships and Up-Cs) and complex capital structures (including preferred equity and non-traded common units), mineral aggregator enterprise values pulled from databases are often missing meaningful components of value, leading to skewed valuation multiples.
Mercer Capital has thoughtfully analyzed the corporate and capital structures of the publicly traded mineral aggregators to derive meaningful indications of enterprise value. We have also calculated valuation multiples based on a variety of metrics, including distributions and reserves, as well as earnings and production on both a historical and forward-looking basis.
Last week, we reviewed the second quarter earnings calls for a select group of E&P companies and briefly discussed the macroeconomic factors affecting the oil and gas industry. In this post, we focus on the key takeaways from mineral aggregator second quarter 2021 earnings calls.
In Part I of our Themes from Q1 Earnings, there was cautious optimism in the E&P space as most of the operators we tracked reported relatively stable performance. In the Q2 E&P operator earnings calls, there was continued discussion of positive free cash flow, as well as deleveraging and a return of capital to shareholders. Notably, commentary regarding any tax implications arising from Washington was absent this time around, and previously outlined ESG initiatives, perhaps not surprisingly, were also all well on track, if not better, this quarter than in Q1. In this latest round of earnings calls, however, the primary themes were nuanced with indications of tempered growth plans, and continued growth in free cash flow stemming from increased operational efficiency in spite of projected inflation.
As we await second quarter earnings for publicly traded upstream producers, there are several markers and trends that suggest cash flows and profits will swell. Investment austerity and the recently resulting profits will almost certainly be bandied about on management calls. However, what might not be touted as loudly will be how much longer this can last?
As the volatility continues with oil field service companies (the OSX has nearly doubled since November 2020), valuation and techniques associated therewith are important to consider right now. Therefore, this week we are reposting our blog post and whitepaper as it pertains to how to understand and value oil field service companies.
M&A transactions picked up in the 12-months ended mid-June relative to the 12-month period preceding it. Among all the transactions that occurred over this period, one pair jumped out involving a common buyer and for which valuation metrics were available. These related to Pioneer’s acquisition of Parsley Energy in October 2020 and DoublePoint Energy in April 2021. In this post, we take a deeper dive into each transaction.
It’s been tough out there for equity capital markets bankers covering the upstream sector. Since 2016, there have only been five U.S. E&P company IPOs. The dearth of activity is driven by a number of factors which we discuss further in this week’s blog post.
The economics of Oil & Gas production vary by region. The cost of producing oil and gas depends on the geological makeup of the reserve, depth of reserve, and cost to transport the raw crude to market. We can observe different costs in different regions depending on these factors. In this post, we take a closer look at the Permian.
