HES: Top-Performing US Oil Producer So Far This Year -- May 22, 2019

When I think of Hess, I think of Tioga, ND. Tioga is about the smallest oil capital in the world.

But there it is: the "year's top-performing US producer" has no exposure to the Permian. None. Nada. Zilch. Wow.

From Bloomberg:

This year’s top-performing U.S. oil producer doesn’t have any operations in the world’s fastest-growing shale play.

New York-based Hess Corp. has climbed about 64% this year to trade above $66 on Tuesday in New York. The S&P 500 Energy Index, meanwhile, is up just 12% over the same period.

Hess is leading the pack with the exception of Anadarko Petroleum Corp., which is being bought by Occidental Petroleum Corp. following a bidding war with Chevron Corp.

Unlike a long list of other oil drillers, Hess isn’t staking its name on the prolific Permian Basin, which has seen shale output nearly double in two years. Instead, the company is tapping a massive discovery more than 3,000 miles away in Guyana and tinkering with techniques to improve results in North Dakota.

“There’s value in portfolio diversity,” said Devin McDermott, an analyst at Morgan Stanley who has a buy rating on the stock. “Hess has an attractive balance of short-cycle shale, which can be flexed up and down with the oil price, and this very attractive longer-cycle development in offshore Guyana.”

Last year's top performing oil stock was ConocoPhillips, which has operations all over the globe, including some assets in the Permian and several other U.S. basins.

Much more at the link.

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Let's go back and look at the "revenue per employee" study.  Of the S&P 500, Hess was #11 on the revenue per employee list, at about $3.75 million / employee. Revenue per employee grew at a 46% rate year-over-year (2018-over-2017).