Hess -- 1Q24

Locator: 47052HESS.

I'm consistently amazed and irritated how CNBC consistently fails to report some really amazing stuff.

It took me awhile to get to Hess' earnings. Because I had seen no headlines, I thought the report would have been boring. Wow, it is amazing, this report was not given larger exposure especially considering the current Exxon - Chevron - Hess - Guyana story.

Link here.

Before you read further, remember that some major E&P oil companies not only missed earnings estimates but reported really poor results.

So, let's get started.

1Q24 earnings: $3.16

• beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.73
• are you kidding me. The Zacks estimate was a buckseventythree and EPS came in at $3.16
• the year-ago quarter was $1.13

Think about that. Last year, $1.13 and the estimate was $1.73 and EPS came in at $3.16.

Holy mackerel.

And then look at revenues:

• 1Q24: $3,341 million
• last year, 1Q23: $2,453 million
• Zacks estimate: $2,929 million

Think about that, revenues came in at $3,341 million when "expert" analysts forecast well less than $3,000 million.

But what bothered me even more, this was reported as $3,000 million ... hellooooo? It was $3.341 billion. Hardly chump change, but expressed in millions certainly is not as impressive as being expressed in billions.

Then this line:

Absolutely incorrect. The price of oil has been quite volatile but all the predictions of $100-oil and WTI has hardly gotten to $85. Currently, it broke below $79.

An gas -- meaning natural gas -- a disaster -- a lot of companies are reporting smaller earnings / revenue due to natural gas prices. In fact, natural gas has even negative -- and yet the writer said Hess earnings have improved due to better oil and gas prices.

Other data points:

E&P business:

• adjusted earnings of almost one-billion dollars ($997 million)
• a year ago, $405 million -- that's a [(997-405)/405] = 146% increase, year/year

Total hydrocarbon production:

• 1Q24: 476,000 boepd
• last year, 374,000 boepd
• that's a [(476-374)/374] = a 27% increase, year/year -- think about that -- production increased by 27% and yet the E&P business increased by 146%.

Crude oil production:

• 1Q24: 305,000
• last year, 216,000

Natural gas liquids production:

• 1Q24: 71 MBbls/day -- forecast: 65.3 MBbls/d
• last year: 62 MBbls/day

And there are more numbers. At the link.

Price, crude oil:

• this year: $80.06
• last year: $76.02

But look at this incredible increase in the price of natural gas which help explains Hess remarkable earnings:

• this year: $4.62 per Mcf
• last year: $4.39 per McF

Oh, give me a break

But even worse, the average global NGL selling price declined to $22.97 per bbl from $24.25 reported last year (and yet Hess reported stellar earnings).

And the numbers go on and on.

Long-term debt: $8.415 billion. It would have been nice had the writer put that $8 billion in context, otherwise it means nothing to me.