Locator: 51548B.
WTI: $8034.
New wells reporting:
- Thursday, August 27, 2026: 54 for the month, 95 for the quarter, 439 for the year,
- 42668, conf, Oasis, Troon Federal 5602 12-23 4B,
- 41879, conf, XTO Energy, GBU Artemis 32X-13A-S,
- Wednesday, August 26, 2026: 52 for the month, 93 for the quarter, 437 for the year,
- 41971, conf, Devon Energy, Thunderbolt 10-12 2H,
- 40937, conf, Zavanna Energy, Hereford 13-36 2TFH,
- 21562, conf, Devon Energy, Borsheim Trust 32-28 2H,
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 (gray line and right axis in Figure 1 below) 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 (far-right blue bar and left axis), the richest since 2022. Cash flow also reached a post-2022 peak, increasing 8% to $29.72/boe (far-right orange bar and left axis). Upstream revenues rose 6% to $44.67/boe.