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Post two days ago. A very, very long article. Right now the full article is available. In a few days it will disappear. Highly recommend reading.
RBN Energy: commodity price swings reshape E&P earnings in 2Q26. Link here. Archived.
The second quarter of 2026 was a tale of two commodity markets for U.S. exploration and production companies. A 29% quarter-over-quarter increase in WTI oil prices to $92.53/bbl provided a more powerful tailwind for Oil-Weighted E&Ps, who experienced a pre-tax operating profit turnaround with a war-driven late Q1 price surge. In stark contrast, plunging natural gas prices wounded Gas-Weighted producers after bountiful Q1 results.
In today’s RBN blog, we review the Q2 2026 results of the 37 publicly traded E&Ps we cover and analyze the remarkably wide performance gap they reveal.
The oil price climb from the Iran conflict and a spike in natural gas prices driven by an unusually cold winter across the eastern U.S. combined to double the average pre-tax profits for our 37-company universe from Q4 2025 to Q1 2026 to $15.12/boe, the highest result since mid-2023.
The continuing rise in oil prices spurred another 31% increase in pre-tax operating profits in Q2 2026 to $19.83/boe, the richest since 2022.
Cash flow also reached a post-2022 peak, increasing 8% to $29.72/boe ). Upstream revenues rose 6% to $44.67/boe.
One would hope return to investors would reflect those results.