Firm Power & Transition Fuels

Fluxys Belgium reported half year 2026 sales of €342.97 million and net income of €46.78 million, with higher basic earnings per share than a year earlier. The shares now trade at €21.2, up 1.44% over one day and 3.41% over seven days, though the 30-day return is down 5.78%; the 90-day return is 8.16% and the year-to-date gain is 10.99%. The stock carries a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.6x, above the 12.5x peer group average and the 13.9x average for the broader European oil and gas industry, while revenue is expected to decline 2.8% per year. A discounted cash flow model values the shares at €1.5 each, far below the current price. Over one year total shareholder return is 16.66%, against a broadly flat 3-year total shareholder return of 0.09% and a 5-year total shareholder return that declined 18.04%.

ConocoPhillips confirmed it is reviewing an unsolicited offer of up to US$7.00 billion for certain European assets, a relatively small portion of its portfolio. The company said the review reflects a focus on portfolio discipline rather than any large-scale reshaping of its business, and any sale would sit alongside its existing growth drivers in LNG and long-life conventional projects. Separately, analysts remain upbeat on ConocoPhillips' near-term earnings prospects, citing a positive Earnings ESP of 17.36% and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) ahead of its next earnings release previously expected on November 5, 2026. The company's narrative projects $68.0 billion in revenue and $11.4 billion in earnings by 2029, requiring 1.8% yearly revenue growth and about a $2.1 billion earnings increase from $9.3 billion today. The most bearish analysts had assumed revenue would slip to about US$62,000,000,000 by 2029 and earnings to about US$9,900,000,000.

Global Power Solutions Corp. announced it has terminated its previously announced definitive joint development and licence agreement with Northern Hydrogen and Energy Ltd., with acknowledgment and consent from ModeOne Manpower Systems Corp. and MVP Systems, effective November 7, 2026. The company also terminated its previously announced non-binding letter of intent with 2782404 AB Ltd., effective immediately. Separately, Global Power said it is evaluating a range of potential power-generation and infrastructure solutions, including conventional and emerging power-generation technologies, distributed and modular power infrastructure, energy-storage solutions and hydrogen-related applications, with a focus on supporting data centres, high-performance computing, industrial operations and other mission-critical applications. The company said it intends to remain flexible in evaluating strategic alternatives and potential technology partners, and cautioned there can be no assurance its evaluation will result in any particular transaction, partnership, technology deployment or investment. Global Power will provide further updates when material developments occur.

Moody's Ratings has revised its outlook on Crescent Energy Co to positive from stable while affirming the company's Ba3 Corporate Family Rating, a move that followed immediately on Crescent's $3.85 billion all-cash acquisition of Eagle Ford Basin assets from Devon Energy Corporation. To finance the purchase, Crescent secured a $2 billion bridge facility commitment alongside a $1 billion primary equity offering. Moody's Vice President Jonathan Teitel said the positive outlook reflects both the enhanced operational scale in the Eagle Ford and expectations that robust, hedge-supported free cash flow will enable substantial debt reduction over the next 12 to 18 months. The Devon transaction positions Crescent to expand production to approximately 400 thousand barrels of oil equivalent per day, pushing its operating footprint well past similarly rated exploration and production peers, though Moody's cautioned the acquisition appears fully valued and materially increases near-term debt loads, interrupting the company's recent deleveraging momentum. Crescent has locked in substantial commodity hedges for 2027 at higher crude prices, and Moody's expects the Houston-based producer to refinance its temporary bridge commitments with long-term capital, preserving a liquidity profile that currently includes SGL-1 top-tier liquidity and $2 billion in committed credit facility availability. Upgrades over the next year to 18 months will hinge on executing post-acquisition debt reduction, maintaining conservative financial policies, and sustaining retained cash flow relative to total debt above 50%.

Oracle is trucking natural gas directly to its data centers to keep construction on schedule, a stopgap measure it is considering for a build in New Mexico where a needed gas pipeline is delayed. The company is already running 30 trucks a day to data centers outside Salt Lake City, according to Bloomberg reporting. Oracle did not respond to requests for comment, but later posted on social media praising the partner helping it carry out the effort. The news added to pressure on Oracle shares, which had already been sliding amid confusion over OpenAI's ARR figure, though the stock was up almost 5% on the day. Analysts said the move signals the delays are more significant than the market expected, since trucking gas is a measure normally reserved for remote mining or temporary industrial operations.

The total number of active oil and gas drilling rigs in the United States rose this week to 603, up 56 from the same time last year, according to new data Baker Hughes published on Friday. Within that total, active oil rigs rose by 6 to 462, which is 44 above year-ago levels, while gas rigs fell by 1 to 132, still 12 more than a year earlier, and miscellaneous rigs held steady at 9. The Permian Basin accounted for much of the gain, with its count rising by 4 to 274, 24 rigs above year-ago levels, while the Eagle Ford held fast at 49, 5 more than this time last year. Separately, EIA data showed weekly U.S. crude oil production averaged 13.979 million bpd in the week ending October 2, up from 13.955 million bpd the prior week and up 350,000 bpd from a year ago, and Primary Vision's Frac Spread Count rose for a fourth straight week, up 1 crew to 196. Oil prices were down Friday ahead of the data release, with Brent trading at $103.80, down 0.42% on the day but up $2.70 from a week ago, and WTI at $91.29, down 0.22%.

Constellation Energy has landed two 20-year contracts with tech giants in about a week, with Google committing to 890 MW of new nuclear capacity on PJM days after Amazon signed a deal tied to a 190 MW expansion at Calvert Cliffs. Constellation, the largest nuclear operator in the US, runs 55 gigawatts of capacity across nuclear, gas, geothermal, hydro, wind and solar since buying Calpine earlier this year, and sells power to about 2.5 million customer accounts, including 80% of the Fortune 100. The company will invest more than $4.3 billion to upgrade 11 nuclear units across Illinois, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, with the first uprate due by 2028, while a separate 15-year agreement covers 2,700 MW from existing plants. Adjusted operating earnings rose to $2.55 a share from $1.91 a year earlier and management raised full-year adjusted guidance to $11.50 to $12.50 a share, though GAAP earnings fell to $1.42 from $2.67. The quarter's 920 MW of new agreements run 15 to 20 years with investment-grade buyers and start between 2029 and 2032, and the Crane Clean Energy Center restart now has its fuel license and a key grid-connection approval, with the company still targeting 2027.

Shell plc has partially restarted operations at its Pearl gas-to-liquids facility in Qatar, marking an initial recovery step after the Iran war damaged the plant in March 2026. The restart will let Shell build limited inventories of finished products, though shipments remain dependent on regional security and safe maritime routes, and repairs to Train 2, one of the facility's two processing units, are still underway with completion expected in the first quarter of 2027. Pearl GTL, based in Ras Laffan Industrial City, has a capacity of 140,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day and converts North Field natural gas into gasoil, kerosene, base oils, naphtha and normal paraffins. Separately, QatarEnergy has begun returning Pearl-GTL naphtha cargoes to the market, issuing a spot tender offering as much as 50,000 metric tons of naphtha across four grades on a free-on-board basis from Ras Laffan, and Haldia Petrochemicals in India received 50,000 metric tons of naphtha for the current quarter. QatarEnergy's previous naphtha tender, which also included Pearl-GTL material, was awarded at a discount of $150 to Middle East benchmark quotations on a free-on-board basis, a figure that relates to the earlier tender and not the latest offering. The partial restart does not mean the facility has returned to normal production, and the pace of further recovery will depend on the repair schedule, operating conditions and the ability to transport products to customers.

Devon Energy is expected to post earnings of $1.20 per share for the current quarter, a change of +15.4% from the year-ago quarter, with the Zacks Consensus Estimate up +5.7% over the last 30 days. For the current fiscal year, the consensus earnings estimate of $5.35 points to a change of +36.5% from the prior year and has risen +2.1% over the last 30 days, while the next fiscal year's estimate of $5.28 indicates a change of -1.3% and has moved +4.8% over the past month. The consensus sales estimate of $7.3 billion for the current quarter points to a year-over-year change of +68.5%, with $25.96 billion and $28.03 billion expected for the current and next fiscal years, changes of +51% and +8% respectively. Devon Energy reported revenues of $7.42 billion in the last reported quarter, a year-over-year change of +73.1%, with EPS of $1.57 versus $0.84 a year ago, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $6.3 billion by +17.76% on revenue and by +20.77% on EPS. The recent change in the consensus estimate, along with three other factors related to earnings estimates, has resulted in a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) for Devon Energy, and the stock carries a Zacks Value Style Score of B, indicating it is trading at a discount to its peers.

Shell Canada Energy, an affiliate of Shell plc, has reached an agreement with Equinor to acquire a 30% non-operated interest in the Bay du Nord project offshore Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. Equinor will retain a 70% interest and remain as the operator of the project. The concept is a phased subsea development tied back to a floating production, storage and offloading vessel, with gross production capacity planned to be 160-175 kboe/d and first oil anticipated in 2031. The project remains pre-FID, and any future investment decision will be subject to Shell's investment criteria and will need to compete for capital within its portfolio. Shell said the transaction provides an attractive entry point with expected returns above its hurdle rate and exposure to an established resource base with potential longer-term growth.

Oil companies announced four separate transactions in four trading days as Brent crude held above $100 a barrel, with the U.S. Energy Information Administration now expecting Brent to average $96.32 a barrel in 2026 and $83.74 in 2027, up from $91.01 and $73.74 a month ago in its October Short-Term Energy Outlook. The EIA said Brent averaged $114 a barrel in September, $23 higher than in August, and touched a daily high of $131 on September 15 after attacks on Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline temporarily halted flows on a route that bypasses the Strait of Hormuz, and it assumes Middle East oil flows stay constrained through the fourth quarter with shut-ins averaging 4.5 million barrels per day. Cenovus Energy agreed on October 5 to acquire Athabasca Oil Corporation for C$12.00 per Athabasca share, payable in cash, Cenovus shares or a combination, for an implied enterprise value of C$5.7 billion, adding about 45,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day and expected to generate about $85 million a year in synergies. Energy Transfer agreed on October 6 to acquire Vaquero Midstream for about $2.6 billion, made up of $1.95 billion in cash and about 33.3 million newly issued Energy Transfer common units, adding roughly 300 miles of pipeline in Texas and the Caymus Processing Complex with about 675 million cubic feet per day of capacity. Chevron subsidiaries signed definitive agreements on October 6 with Hess Midstream to extend Bakken midstream terms, expecting to cut Bakken unit midstream costs by about 50%, divest its Hess Midstream interests and transfer DJ Basin crude oil midstream assets for $200 million in cash, and fully deconsolidate Hess Midstream including about $3.7 billion of its debt. Crescent Energy agreed on October 8 to acquire Devon Energy's Eagle Ford assets for an estimated net purchase price of about $3.85 billion after adjustments, adding about 68,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day of net production and more than 600 Tier 1 net locations, and launched a $1 billion offering of Class A common stock the same day. Shell issued its third quarter 2026 update note on October 7, pointing to an indicative refining margin of $42 a barrel, up from $24 in the second quarter, with Integrated Gas production expected at 740,000 to 780,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day and third quarter results scheduled for October 29.

Devon Energy has agreed to sell its Eagle Ford shale acreage to Crescent Energy for US$4.2b in cash, reshaping its portfolio around higher-return, longer-duration assets. The roughly 90,000 net acres are described as non-core, and management aims to lower its corporate breakeven, with net proceeds earmarked for faster share repurchases and debt reduction. Closing is expected around year end 2026, and investors will watch for any updated capital return framework. The deal headlines a morning in which US stocks are set for a softer open as inflation expectations push higher again, with median US inflation expectations for the year ahead at 3.9% for September 2026, the highest since May 2023, and Fed minutes showing most officials see a likely need for another 25 bps hike to a range of 3.75% to 4% by year end. Mortgage applications are down 4.2% and the average 30 year fixed rate sits around 7.49%, keeping pressure on borrowing costs for households and companies. Elsewhere, Vertiv reported quarterly sales up 24% and lifted its annual forecasts on AI data center demand, while CoreWeave faces a tougher backdrop for data center IPOs after an expected postponement of Nvidia backed Firmus Grid's Australian listing.

Enterprise Products Partners has declared a quarterly dividend of $0.56 per share, unchanged from the prior quarter. The distribution carries a forward yield of 6.1%. It is payable November 13 to shareholders of record as of October 30, with the ex-dividend date also set for October 30. The company has now announced a dividend of $0.56 for two consecutive quarters.

Gulf Development Public Company Limited, or GULF, has set the final interest rates for six tranches of bonds and digital bonds with maturities of 3 to 10 years at 1.83-3.00% per year, with a combined face value of up to 20 billion baht. The bonds will be open for subscription by the general public from October 19 to 21, 2026. The bonds carry a credit rating of AA- with a Stable outlook from TRIS Rating Company Limited. The six tranches consist of a 3-year zero-coupon bond with a discount rate of 1.83% per year, a 4-year bond at 2.10% per year, a 5-year bond at 2.33% per year, a 7-year digital bond at 2.80% per year, a 7-year bond at 2.80% per year, and a 10-year bond at 3.00% per year. Miss Yupapin Wangwiwat, Chief Financial Officer of GULF, said that the offering to institutional investors and high-net-worth investors during the bookbuilding process drew demand as high as 3.3 times the value of the bonds allocated to those investor groups, reflecting confidence in the company's business and financial position. As for subscription channels, the 4-year, 5-year, and 10-year bonds are being offered through eight leading financial institutions: Bangkok Bank, Krungthai Bank, Kasikornbank, Siam Commercial Bank, United Overseas Bank, Bank of Ayudhya, CIMB Thai Bank, and Asia Plus Securities, with a minimum of 100,000 baht. The 7-year digital bond is available for subscription only through Krungthai Bank's Paotang application, with a minimum investment of 1,000 baht and a maximum of 50 million baht per transaction. The company plans to use the proceeds to repay maturing bonds and to support expansion in renewable energy and digital infrastructure businesses such as data centers, cloud, and AI. As for operating results in the second quarter of 2026, GULF posted a record operating profit of 12.332 billion baht, up 74% from the same period a year earlier, while total revenue was 50.294 billion baht, up 24% from a year earlier.

Shares of Global Power Synergy Public Company Limited, or GPSC, rose 5.13% to 51.25 baht, up 2.50 baht, on trading value of 580.74 million baht. Asia Plus Securities recommends a buy with a 2027 target price of 56 baht, noting that over the past 1.5 months the stock has corrected more than 10%, already reflecting to some extent the negative factor of high energy costs stemming from the war. Although second-half profit still looks likely to soften from the first half of this year, looking ahead to 2027, a year-on-year recovery is still expected. The current share price is beginning to offer wider upside, so the brokerage advises accumulating on dips for long-term investment. The research team views that in 2026 GPSC will continue to drive an EBITDA uplift of about 700 million baht under the PTT group framework, while focusing on shifting industrial-customer power sales contracts toward a more gas-linked structure to reduce gas cost volatility, and aiming to lift ROE from about 6% to 8% in the initial phase. However, the research team expects normal profit in the short term to decline quarter-on-quarter in the third quarter of 2026 and to continue softening quarter-on-quarter in the fourth quarter of 2026, given gas prices that remain at high risk from a war dragging on longer than previously expected. As for IPP power plant projects approaching expiry, GPSC is in talks with EGAT to extend contracts and may consider selling some of the remaining capacity to Data Center customers, which is another new growth theme. GPSC has plans both in Thailand, where it will focus on being a power producer, and in India, where it will begin investing in Data Centers, with initial phase capacity expected at around 50 to 100 megawatts and gradual expansion as opportunities arise later. On progress of the existing 250-megawatt ERU project, originally scheduled for commercial operation in the first quarter of 2026, GPSC and TOP are currently negotiating how to proceed after some conditions precedent were not completed on schedule, with clarity expected by October 2026.

Constellation Energy Corporation signed a 3,590 megawatt power agreement with Google, sending its shares up roughly 12% on October 6. The deal is unusually large for a company whose nuclear fleet cannot be replicated quickly, since licensing and building a nuclear plant in the United States takes more than a decade before a single megawatt is sold. Revenue grew 23.00% in the most recent quarter, but earnings fell 38.90% over the same period, and operating cash flow of $4.21 billion against capital expenditure of $3.90 billion left only $309.00 million in free cash flow to service $24.70 billion of debt. The stock traded at around $300 on October 7, down 0.27% on the day and 21.61% lower over twelve months, giving it a market value of $106.15 billion. Constellation was held by 73 hedge funds with a combined stake value of about $2.67 billion at the end of Q2 2026, down from 79 holders and roughly $3.38 billion in the previous quarter.

Crescent Energy Company announced the pricing of an underwritten public offering of 80,000,000 shares of its Class A common stock at $12.50 per share. Independence Energy Aggregator L.P., an entity affiliated with KKR & Co. Inc. that holds approximately 7.9% of Crescent's Class A common stock, has agreed to purchase 40,000,000 of those shares at the public offering price and on the same terms as the other shares. Crescent intends to use the net proceeds to fund a portion of the cash consideration for its recently announced acquisition of certain Eagle Ford oil and natural gas assets from Devon Energy Production Company, L.P., a subsidiary of Devon Energy Corporation, which is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2026 or early 2027. The offering is not contingent on the completion of that acquisition, and if it is not completed the proceeds will be used for general corporate purposes, including repayment of indebtedness of the Company's subsidiaries. The Company has granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to 12,000,000 additional shares, and the offering is expected to close on October 13, 2026.

Northwest Natural Holding Company has declared a quarterly dividend of 50 cents per share, lifting its indicated annual rate to $2.00 per share from the previous $1.97 per share. The 3-cent increase marks the company's 71st consecutive year of raising shareholder dividends and its largest declared increase since 2012. Chief Financial Officer Ray Kaszuba said strong execution gave the company flexibility to raise the dividend at a higher rate than in recent years while positioning it to meet its targeted payout ratio. The company evaluates its dividend annually based on capital requirements and financial performance, and over the long term expects increases to be supported by earnings growth while maintaining a target payout ratio of 55% to 65% of earnings per share. The dividend is payable on Nov. 13, 2026, to shareholders of record on Oct. 30, 2026.