Expecting Numbers to Beat, Although Focus on Type Curves & ME Shale

Research evidence excerpt

Expecting Numbers to Beat, Although Focus on Type Curves & ME Shale

PREV 5.72 4.96 4.45 18.53

guidance ($9.85-11.15) at $10.45/boe as LOE remains elevated at $3.78/boe due to higher cost

base maintenance efforts. In total this should deliver FCF of $2.8bn, using $1.6bn of capex, leading

us to expect another quarter of buybacks below the 70% shareholder return threshold. Using 50%

return we arrive at a ~$1.1bn share repurchase, the largest in company history. We expect the

percentage allocation to rise in 2H26 to reach 70% for the full year as the company looks to be

counter-cyclical in its returns.

Exploration Efforts Drive Investor Focus. While the quarter is likely to deliver solid financial results,

investors will place more weight on exploration results from the UAE as they assess the release.

Our sense for buyside sentiment into the quarter is that incremental production metrics will be key

to overlay activity assumptions while guidance remains light pre-FID. With FID a ’27 consideration,

early well costs are unlikely to be disclosed, but we would anticipate well counts and productivity

metrics are a reasonable expectation. Following ~$90mn of international capex in 1Q, the 2Q run-

rate will be an important marker for investors to evaluate project economics, while above ground

processing/transportation costs remain uncertain. Given our expectation for wells TIL’d in UAE in

2Q26, delivering production not captured in guidance, we expect investors will press for more details

on the international program.

Lloyd Byrne * | Equity Analyst

+1 (212) 323-7528 | lloyd.byrne@jefferies.com

John Edelman * | Equity Analyst

+1 (212) 336-7412 | jedelman@jefferies.com

FY (Dec) 2025A 2026E 2027E 2028E Emma Schwartz * | Equity Analyst

1 (212) 336-7254 | emma.schwartz@jefferies.com