PetroEquity Conversations
Conversations with Oberon Houston exploring the evidence, personalities and strategic questions behind the analysis.
Follow on Spotify
PetroEquity podcast · 21:44
Higher sovereign yields are changing the economics of corporate debt, refinancing and capital allocation. For oil and gas, the risk is sharper: financing costs can stay high even if oil falls, leaving balance-sheet strength to determine who can invest, acquire and survive.
View episodePetroEquity podcast · 41:05
Talos replaced founder Tim Duncan with Shell veteran Paul Goodfellow. What can Big Oil executives bring to independents, what may their careers leave untested, and why does the right CEO depend on what the company needs next?
View episodePetroEquity podcast · 47:03
In the final Boardroom Special, Jessica and Oberon ask who might act on their Shell–BP analysis. The search for a mandate leads somewhere unexpected: Houston, and a potential sale or US listing of BP’s American upstream business.
View episodePetroEquity podcast · 21:49
PES tourmailine and karoon0:00/1309.046191× Oil and gas investors have spent a decade demanding more cash back. Tourmaline and Karoon show why that discipline was necessary — but also why exceptional management may sometimes create more value by keeping some financial capacity intact and waiting for the right opportunity.
View episodePetroEquity podcast · 23:44
We are still inside the fictional PetroEquity investment bank, Oberon and Jessica develop the theoretical Shell acquisition of BP into an internal pitch book, exploring the valuation, history and confidence problem that could make the idea worth taking seriously.
View episodePetroEquity podcast · 32:34
Kosmos Energy proved it could find major hydrocarbons. The harder problem was building a public company around discoveries that are rare, unpredictable and impossible to schedule.
View episodePetroEquity podcast · 47:38
For decades, upstream was treated as the economic heart of the integrated oil company. But Marathon, Murphy and ConocoPhillips produced a surprising result after separating their downstream businesses. What happened to the cash — and what does it tell us about oil-company strategy today?
View episodePetroEquity podcast · 23:17
Murphy Oil was once an unusually complete and technically ambitious oil company for its size. Over the past decade, much of that business has been sold, separated or reshaped. This podcast looks at what Murphy built, what changed, and why the shareholder outcome has been far less impressive.
View episodePetroEquity podcast · 33:01
Inside the fictional PetroEquity investment bank, Oberon and Jessica begin with a theoretical Shell acquisition of BP and show how a transformational M&A idea is originated, tested and judged before anyone has a mandate.
View episodePetroEquity podcast · 14:33
ConocoPhillips has announced Ryan Lance’s retirement as CEO, with Andy O’Brien taking over. The succession does not prove PetroEquity’s earlier argument, but it sharpens it: COP got bigger. O’Brien now has to show whether it got better.
View episodePetroEquity podcast · 40:26
EOG Resources began as Enron Oil & Gas. This is the story of how successive management teams turned technical insight, capital discipline and industry crises into one of the finest records of value creation in upstream.
View episodePetroEquity podcast · 4:51
Trailer: A short introduction to the PetroEquity Signal Boardroom Series. Discover how Shell acquiring BP will be used to explore the strategy, personalities, shareholders and decisions behind a major merger.
View episodePetroEquity podcast · 33:11
Is US shale a long-term growth story—or an exceptionally profitable resource being harvested while it lasts? We follow that question from ConocoPhillips, Diamondback and EQT into Canadian LNG, Shell’s acquisition of ARC Resources, the oil sands and BP’s exit from Bay du Nord. We test company strategy against investor returns, BMO’s research and a simple question: what should an upstream company own next?
View episodePetroEquity podcast · 32:38
BP has put its UK North Sea business up for sale ending more than 60 years as an offshore producer. Jessica and Oberon examine why BP is selling and, most importantly, who might buy. Ithaca, Adura, NEO NEXT+, Harbour and possible new entrants are assessed against financing, tax, offtake, decommissioning liabilities and BP’s desire to find a credible long-term owner.
View episodePetroEquity podcast · 31:12
Jessica and Oberon examine how exploration made the oil majors, why the industry retreated after the 2014 price crash, and how Covid and the energy transition accelerated that decline. They compare ExxonMobil, Eni, TotalEnergies, BP, Shell and Chevron, asking who preserved the capability to find new resources, who lost strategic continuity, and who ultimately had to buy barrels discovered by somebody else.
View episodePetroEquity podcast · 38:29
Chevron spent the last decade moving from megaprojects to the Permian and then to acquisitions. Oberon and Jessica examine what worked, what did not, and how Chevron’s strategy compares with Shell and ConocoPhillips as the company looks towards Guyana, gas-to-power and its next phase of growth.
View episodePetroEquity podcast · 34:35
Harbour Energy Part 2 follows the company from the Premier reverse takeover to the present day. It looks beyond the acquisitions themselves to Linda Cook’s leadership, the influence of EIG and the board, the Energy Profits Levy, Wintershall Dea, LLOG and the question now facing Harbour: whether the platform it has built can finally deliver sustained growth, lower debt and stronger distributions.
View episodePetroEquity podcast · 33:36
Harbour Energy was built through acquisitions, but its origins lie in Chrysaor, private equity and a North Sea dealmaking model. The Harbour Story - Part 1 takes an unexpected turn into Premier Oil, its tangled finances and the reverse takeover that created today’s listed company we know as Harbour Energy.
View episodePetroEquity podcast · 28:55
Occidental Petroleum's 2014 spin-off of California Resources Corporation was more than a corporate separation. It was a high-stakes capital allocation decision that unlocked value for some shareholders, transferred risk to others and exposed the dangers of leverage in a cyclical industry.
View episodePetroEquity podcast · 17:16
Shell’s trading and supply business is central to its strategy, yet investors cannot see clearly how much it earns, how its risks are controlled or whether its competitive advantage can endure.
View episodePetroEquity podcast · 17:29
Why European oil majors mistook the extraordinary conditions of 2020 and 2021 for a permanent industrial shift, and how cheap money, inflated valuations and policy momentum distorted corporate strategy.
View episodePetroEquity podcast · 27:40
How Tullow Oil’s remarkable discoveries in Uganda, Ghana and Kenya were overtaken by development risk, rising debt and a balance sheet that could no longer support the company’s ambitions.
View episodePetroEquity podcast · 21:37
The rise and sudden removal of Albert Manifold as BP chairman, and the deeper boardroom struggle it exposed over the company’s strategy, governance and future direction.
View episode