Q1 2020 Valero Energy Corp Earnings Call
U.S. refiners are expected to report poor first-quarter results starting this week, but investors are more concerned about the outlook for coming months as various states ease movement restrictions designed to curb coronavirus infections. Fuel demand has dropped by roughly 25% in the United States and about 30% worldwide as the coronavirus pandemic has kept billions of people from traveling. U.S. refineries have throttled back production, operating at roughly two-thirds of capacity.
Independent U.S. refiner Valero Energy Corp said on Wednesday it swung to a loss in the first quarter as lockdowns to suppress the coronavirus crushed demand for its gasoline, jet fuel and other products. Valero reported a net loss attributable to stockholders of $1.85 billion, or $4.54 per share, for the three months ended March 31, compared with a net income of $141 million, or 34 cents per share, in the year-ago period.
Despite lower-than-expected revenue, Valero's results show it's perfectly capitalized to weather any downturn.
Valero Energy's (VLO) first-quarter results are supported by a rise in renewable diesel sales volumes and lower operating expenses.
Valero Energy (VLO) has declared a regular quarterly cash dividend of $0.98 per share, with a dividend yield of 7.5%. The dividend is payable on June 3, 2020, to holders of record at the close of business on May 14, 2020.According to RBC Capital analyst Brad Heffern, the news is a ‘slight positive’ for the oil refiner and marketer. “While we see the VLO dividend as safe for at least several quarters of COVID demand impacts, we have received inbound investor queries of late regarding potential cuts or a suspension” he wrote on April 24.“VLO also has a very strong program to return capital to shareholders, with $13+ billion returned in 2015–19” the analyst continued. “VLO is able to export significant products into the global marketplace, which provides a buffer against weak US demand” said Heffern. He has a buy rating on the stock and $54 price target.Valero is due to reveal its first quarter earning results on April 29. Earlier this month, the company provided a key business update where it provided preliminary estimated financial information for 1Q20.This included preliminary revenue of $20.1B-$22.2B, vs the analyst consensus estimate $17.7B, Q1 adjusted EBITDA of $380M-$820M, and 1Q20 net income of ($200)-$160 million.Overall Valero shows a bullish Strong Buy Street consensus, despite posting a year-to-date loss of 44%. That’s with a $72 average analyst price target (37% upside potential). (See Valero Energy’s stock analysis on TipRanks).Citigroup analyst Prashant Rao recently reiterated his VLO buy rating, but slashed his price target from $114 to $60 price target. The analyst believes “risk/reward upside on 2021 earnings is attractive but less compelling than at Phillips 66 (PSX).”Related News: Boeing Backs Out of $4.2 Billion Embraer Joint Venture Deal “WWE is Covid-19 Resistant” Cheers Top Analyst After Earnings Gilead Files Government Lawsuit For HIV Research Breach More recent articles from Smarter Analyst: * United Airlines Scraps $2.25 Billion Debt Sale Due to Weak Investor Appetite * Qualcomm Stock Could Have 30% Upside, Says Top Analyst * Chesapeake Utilities Ramps Up Dividend By 8.6% * Why You Should Hold Your Horses With General Electric Stock
Even with the latest surge in stock prices, nearly all energy stocks are down by double-digit percentages for the year.
(Bloomberg) -- As it headed toward bankruptcy, Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc. took advantage of a little-noticed provision in the stimulus bill Congress passed in March to get a $9.7 million tax refund. Then, it asked a bankruptcy judge to authorize the same amount as bonuses to nine executives.The rig operator is one of dozens of oil companies and contractors now claiming hundreds of millions of dollars in tax rebates. They are employing a provision of the $2.2 trillion stimulus law, called the CARES act, that gives them more latitude to deduct recent losses.“This is a stealth bailout for the oil and gas industry,” said Jesse Coleman, a senior researcher with Documented, a watchdog group tracking the tax claims. It’s geared to companies “that have been losing money over the last few years -- and now they get that money back as a check from the taxpayers. That’s exactly what the oil industry has been doing.”The change wasn’t aimed only at the oil industry. However, its structure uniquely benefits energy companies that were raking in record profits in 2018 as crude prices reached $76.41 per barrel, only to see their fortunes flip a year later.More than $1.9 billion in CARES Act tax benefits are being claimed by at least 37 oil companies, service firms and contractors, according to a Bloomberg News review of recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Besides Diamond Offshore, which declined to comment, recipients include oil producer Occidental Petroleum Corp. and refiner Marathon Petroleum Corp.Other oil companies say they didn’t lobby Congress for the change, which is widely available across all industries. “We did not request any benefit, but we are obligated to follow the tax laws as passed by Congress, which apply to all corporate manufacturers nationwide,” said Jamal Kheiry, a spokesman for Marathon, which got a $411 million benefit.Congress embedded the tax change governing losses in the stimulus measure early on, as lawmakers moved rapidly in March to steer trillions of dollars in aid to coronavirus-ravaged workers and companies. Alongside expanded unemployment payments and payroll loan programs, lawmakers saw an opportunity to harness the tax code to help get cash flowing to companies struggling to pay rent, workers and insurance.It “was sold as help for the little guy -- help for small business,” said Steve Rosenthal, a senior fellow with the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. “In the name of ‘small business,’ we’re shoveling out billions of dollars to big corporations and rich guys.”The provision loosened rules governing how businesses deduct net operating losses -- incurred when deductible expenses exceed gross income. For years, companies were able to apply those net operating loss deductions to previous tax returns as well as going forward -- but Congress ruled out retroactive relief as part of the 2017 tax cut law.That new forward-focused approach works well when the economy is expanding, but the promise of using today’s losses as tomorrow’s deductions isn’t much help to coronavirus-battered companies with no guarantee they will survive long enough to claim them. So in the stimulus package, Congress gave businesses the chance to carry back all their losses -- and claim immediate tax refunds -- or five years from 2018, 2019 and 2020.“The thought was temporarily we should bring them back so that firms that are seeing significant losses in the next year or over the past year or two can carry those back and get some short-term liquidity,” said Garrett Watson, a senior policy analyst at the Tax Foundation, a non-profit that supports pro-growth tax policies.Traditionally, the ability to deduct net operating losses is meant to ensure companies get fair tax treatment even amid volatility, Watson said -- a plus for the notoriously boom-and-bust oil industry. “You are going to see the biggest benefits for firms like oil and gas that are seeing volatile profits -- and now, of course, extreme losses,” he said.The combination of big losses now and the congressional tax changes mean it may be years before some oil companies have to pay corporate income taxes at all.“We’re going to have some large losses this year,” ConocoPhillips Executive Vice President Don Wallette said in an April 30 earnings call. The company is in “a zero-tax-paying position in the U.S. and expect to remain there for quite some time,” Wallette said.There’s no limit on how the new refunds can be used -- and even bankrupt firms can get them.Consider Diamond Offshore. Once one of the world’s largest drilling rig contractors, it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on April 26 after crude prices plunged along with demand for its high-tech drillships.In a first quarter filing, Diamond, which is majority owned by Loews Corp., said it had recognized a tax benefit of $9.7 million as a result of the carryback change. In an emergency motion filed with a federal bankruptcy court May 1, the company asked for the freedom to dole out $16.7 million in cash incentives to 85 of its 2,300 full-time employees, including as much as $9.7 million for nine senior executives.The company said at the time that deteriorating market conditions and the collapse of Diamond’s stock had made its existing equity-based bonus program “largely worthless.” The tax filing did not specify how the $9.7 million would be used.Dozens of other oil businesses have reported reaping the benefits, including $55 million for Denver-based Antero Midstream Corp., $41.2 million for supplier Oil States International Inc. and $96 million for Oklahoma-based producer Devon Energy Corp.Occidental Petroleum, which enlisted its employees to ask Congress to “provide liquidity to the energy industry,” said it now anticipates a cash refund of about $195 million as a result of the carryback provision and a separate change in the stimulus bill that allows the immediate refund of unused alternative minimum tax credits. An Occidental spokesperson declined to comment.Millions in RefundsNational Oilwell Varco Inc., a manufacturer of oil and gas equipment, expects a $123 million refund by carrying back its 2019 losses and applying them to its 2014 tax filing.San Antonio-based refiner Valero Energy Corp. recognized an extra $110 million by carrying back losses to 2015 -- when the corporate tax rate was 35% instead of the current 21%.Valero spokeswoman Lillian Riojas said that is tied to tax losses generated in the first quarter, since the company did not generate a net operating loss for federal income tax purposes in 2018 or 2019. And she said the actual refund will be dependent “not only on the company’s performance for the remainder of the year, but also on the impact” of other tax provisions.The benefits are “turbo-charged,” said Rosenthal, with the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. That’s because businesses can carry back losses to offset income at a higher corporate tax rate of 35%, before the 2017 tax cut law lowered it 14 points. “Getting those losses at 35% is very, very favorable -- especially in 2020 when the losses are going to be devastatingly large.”The filings themselves reveal only part of the picture. Private companies are able to generate tax refunds too -- without disclosing it to the SEC. And while some public companies said they benefited from the tax break, they didn’t reveal by how much.For instance, refiner Phillips 66 boasted an effective income tax rate of just 2% for the first quarter -- well below the federal statutory income tax rate of 21% -- partly because of the carryback. But the company did not specify the amount of its expected refund.Dennis Nuss, a spokesman for Phillips 66, declined to comment when reached by phone Thursday. Representatives for Oil States, National Oilwell Varco, Antero and Devon didn’t respond to messages seeking comment.The importance of the provision hasn’t been lost on President Donald Trump’s administration. Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette recommended oil companies consider taking advantage of the expanded deduction in an April 21 interview with Bloomberg TV, calling it one of several “important liquidity tools that are going to help the industry.”Congressional tax analysts initially estimated that the expanded loss carryback provision would cost $25 billion over 10 years -- just when used by corporations. Now, some are questioning whether the final pricetag could be much higher, and Democrats are seeking to limit the value of the tax break after raising concerns it overwhelmingly helps corporations and the wealthy.In a new stimulus bill advanced Tuesday, House Democrats proposed scaling back the provision so companies could only apply losses back to 2018. Their plan also would prevent companies with “excessive” executive compensation or stock buybacks from claiming the tax break -- a change that would be retroactive back to March.Rosenthal stressed that it was logical for Congress to help businesses that were profitable before the pandemic. “But the CARES Act goes too far, tilting its benefits overwhelmingly to the wealthiest Americans,” he said in an essay. “I think Congress did not know the extent of what it was doing.”For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
Reported net loss attributable to Valero stockholders of $1.9 billion, or $4.54 per share.Reported adjusted net income attributable to Valero stockholders of $140 million, or.
(Bloomberg) -- Refiners in the U.S. are making diesel fuel faster than truckers and farmers can burn it.While jet fuel and gasoline demand -- and prices -- plunged at the start of the pandemic with driving and flying largely shut down, diesel was more resilient as delivery trucks stayed on the roads. That’s changed now, however, as refiners shifted to make more diesel and some states start to open up, boosting gasoline consumption.Diesel futures’ premium of almost 65 cents a gallon over gasoline has disappeared over the past month, and now the trucking fuel is at the biggest discount since 2017. Inventories are building even as demand to ship fuel on pipelines into the Midwest has been heard to strengthen this week as planting accelerated.“Will the tractors be able to burn fuel faster than the refiners can make it?” Midwest and Gulf Coast fuels broker Steve Mosby said earlier this week. “Man, I don’t know about that.”It may not be enough to stem a growing glut. The U.S. Energy Information Administration said stocks of distillate -- which includes diesel for trucks and home heating fuel -- last week were at a near-three-year high.Reblending Jet FuelPart of the buildup has come from refiners turning jet fuel, which is chemically similar, into diesel as planes sit parked at airports across the country. Production of jet fuel was the lowest since the government began publishing weekly data in 1990, while distillate output increased to the highest since January.“The jet demand disruption was just so severe, and everyone started blending jet into diesel, it caused the diesel yield from refineries to be really at record levels,” Gary K. Simmons, chief commercial officer of Valero Energy Corp., said on an earnings call. “Even despite the lower refinery utilization, we’ve seen diesel production outpacing demand.”As of earlier this week, 51% of U.S. corn was planted. That’s up from only 21% at the same point last year, when record flooding beset sowings, and the five-year average of 39%, according to Department of Agriculture data. For soybeans, the second-most widely planted American crop after corn, plantings were 23% complete, ahead of 5% a year ago and 11% on average. A late cold snap may slow planting next week.“Heavy planting has continued across the Corn Belt this week and for corn, seeding could be in the later stages by next Monday,” Karl Setzer, analyst at AgriVisor LLC, said in an email.A flood of diesel cargoes from Asia has boosted stockpiles in Europe. Gasoil stockpiles in the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp supply hub jumped the most since September 2018, according to Insights Global.Demand is also shrinking in Mexico, a major customer of U.S. diesel. More than 10 ships holding some 3 million barrels were waiting off the port of Pajaritos to drop off U.S. diesel and jet.The drop in diesel demand probably confirms the U.S. has entered the recession, said GasBuddy fuels analyst Patrick DeHaan.“Now you are starting to see the ramifications from the jobless rate,” he said. “Commerce is grinding to a halt.”For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
Shares of oil refiners HollyFrontier (NYSE: HFC), Phillips 66 (NYSE: PSX), and Valero Energy (NYSE: VLO) rose between 34% and 40% in April, according to data provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence. HollyFrontier's shares were up 34.8%, Phillips 66's increased 36.4%, and Valero's soared 39.7%.
Refiners were rising, a small positive sign that investors expect demand for things like gasoline to improve.The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 were up more than 1%.
(Bloomberg) -- Few have a better watchtower over oil demand than Joe Gorder, chief executive officer of major U.S. refiner Valero Energy Corp. But this week Gorder didn’t even need his business insight to know that fuel consumption was starting to recover in America.He only needed to look at the streets of San Antonio, the Texas city where he’s based, to see traffic emerging after weeks of lockdown.“People are starting to get out more,” Gorder said. “I think there probably is a pent-up demand for folks to get out of their houses and get mobile.”From the streets of San Antonio to Barcelona and Beijing, traffic data, sales at fuel stations, and pipeline flows all suggest that the slump in oil demand probably bottomed out around the middle of April, and has now started a modest -- and very tentative -- recovery. The signs matter beyond the petroleum industry as they provide a glimmer of hope after a torrent of negative economic data.“I believe we have seen the bottom,” said Marco Dunand, co-founder of Mercuria Energy Group Ltd., one of the world’s top-5 oil trading houses.But the recovery is extremely slow. Oil traders believe it’s likely to take more than a year, and perhaps much longer, before global demand reaches the pre-pandemic levels of roughly 100 million barrels a day. A growing minority even speculate it may never get there again.The likely shape of the revival has been a hotly contested topic. A V-shape was discarded a while ago. It’s possible it could be U-shaped, with a relatively long period along bottom, or L-shaped, with demand never returning to where it once was.Perhaps the Latin alphabet doesn’t have a letter for the right shape. The square-root mathematical symbol may offer, to a point, an alternative: first a V-recovery as lockdowns are relaxed, followed by a long, flat tail as lifestyle changes, such as more work-from-home, become more normal.‘Bumpy Road’Certainly, airlines don’t expect a return to the 2019 level of demand for years to come. It’s what Ed Morse, a veteran oil watcher at Citigroup Inc., calls “the winding, bumpy road to an oil recovery.”The sheer scale of the demand destruction -- about 30 million barrels a day in April -- means the comeback is going to be a painful process. The International Energy Agency estimates that consumption will be down 25.8 million barrels a day in May, and 14.6 million in June. In December, it would still be 2.7 million a day below 2019 levels.“We’re seeing improvements really across all three markets, we’ve seen in May volumes trending up in Europe, we see that happening in the U.S., and we see that also in Asia,” Darren Woods, CEO of Exxon Mobil Corp., told investors on Friday. “There are some, I’d say, encouraging early signs.”The very gradual improvement comes just as producers, from the OPEC+ alliance to drillers in Texas, accelerate their output cuts. Together they could progressively push supply and demand into balance over time. In the past week, more companies, including big American firms such as ConocoPhillips, have announced fresh production closures.“Globally, we are at the inflection point where we are past the worst for oil demand destruction but not for supply destruction,” Olivier Jakob, managing director at consultant Petromatrix GmbH. “This should help price stabilization.”The process will take time, with unsold crude and oil products likely to accumulate well into June and perhaps even July. Storage tanks are nearly full, and brings with it the risk of New York crude gyrating wildly again when the June futures near expiry in the middle of this month, mirroring what happened when the May contract ended and sent prices below zero.Even so, the physical oil market, where actual barrels change hands, is showing tentative signs of recovery, particularly in Europe. Urals, Russia’s flagship export grade, has risen to a premium over Brent after Moscow cut exports to a 10-year low.Recovery EpicenterThe epicentre of the oil recovery is the same as where the public health crisis started in January: Wuhan. Weekday traffic in the Chinese city has almost returned to pre-crisis levels, although it remains depressed on weekends. It’s completely back to normal during rush hour in other major cities including Beijing, Guangzhou and Shanghai, according to data from navigation company TomTom International BV.“There are a few green shoots in some places like China,” said Jessica Uhl, finance head at Royal Dutch Shell Plc. “We have some of our retail stations where demand and volume is up above pre-Covid levels.”Some of these shoots are also visible in one of the most battered industries -- aviation. Commercial operations worldwide are recovering slightly, with Flightradar24 data showing 33,500 flights taking off on April 30, the most in a month. However, that’s still two-thirds lower than from before the pandemic. Most airlines do not plan to fly again until July at the earliest.In the oil industry itself, the recovery is patchy, and many worry that it could quickly reverse if a second wave of infections hit after lockdowns are relaxed. Diesel, which fuels trucks and industries, is holding up better than gasoline, which is doing a lot better than jet-fuel. Even when demand strengthens, crude consumption may remain low because refiners will have first to get rid of the millions of gallons of oil products that have piled up over the past weeks.Murky DetailsAs with many economic indicators, oil demand data comes with a significant lag. So traders rely on proxy estimates for a near real-time view. One is highway traffic. Another is the amount of gasoline and diesel that’s trucked out from pipeline terminals into fuel stations.In the U.S., the amount of gasoline supplied to the market increased last week to nearly 5.9 million barrels a day, up from 5.1 million in the first week of April but well below the typically more than 9 million before the virus, according to the official data. Early last month, refiners saw gasoline demand at 55% of normal level, which improved to 64% in the latest seven-day average. Valero confirmed on Thursday that it’s seeing some pick-up.“I do think we’re going to see more activity,” Valero’s Gorder said.Spain, which had one of the strictest lockdowns in Europe, offers a rare window into real-time demand as the nation’s biggest pipeline operator is disclosing weekly information. CLH Group said gasoline demand in the week to April 26 was down 75% from a year ago, a slight improvement from 81% in mid-April and 83% in late March.In the U.K., demand for road fuels is currently down between 55% and 60% from levels before the crisis, compared with 65%-70% two weeks ago, according to the Petrol Retailers Association.The data show that the recovery is only marginal. But it also indicates that consumption has, at the very least, bottomed out. Where demand goes, prices follow, and Torbjorn Tornqvist, head of commodity trading giant Gunvor Group Ltd, thinks the worst of oil’s slide is over.Echoing a widely held view in the market, Tornqvist warns, however, that these subdued prices and demand may remain for a while. Prices aren’t likely to go much above $40 a barrel before the end of 2021, Tornqvist said. Only four months ago, at the start of this year, benchmark Brent crude was near $70. It was at about $26 a barrel on Monday.“It’s going to take a long time to balance the market,” he said.(Updates with oil price in penultimate paragraph)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
WTI crude falls more than 20% Continue reading...
By Yasin Ebrahim
VLO earnings call for the period ending March 31, 2020.
Valero Energy (VLO) delivered earnings and revenue surprises of 326.67% and 5.63%, respectively, for the quarter ended March 2020. Do the numbers hold clues to what lies ahead for the stock?
Prominent U.S. fund managers piled into big-name technology stocks and bottom-fished in the beaten-down energy sector as markets reeled from the coronavirus-fueled selloff in the first quarter, regulatory filings released on Friday showed. Stanley Druckenmiller's Duquesne Family Office increased its holding in Amazon by 713%.
Coronavirus is probably the 1 concern in investors' minds right now. It should be. On February 27th we published an article with the title Recession is Imminent: We Need A Travel Ban NOW. We predicted that a US recession is imminent and US stocks will go down by at least 20% in the next 3-6 […]
The Board of Directors of Valero Energy Corporation (NYSE: VLO, “Valero”) has declared a regular quarterly cash dividend on common stock of $0.98 per share. As a reminder, Valero will host a conference call on April 29, 2020, at 10 a.m. ET to discuss first quarter earnings results, which will be released earlier that day, and to provide an update on company operations. Valero Energy Corporation, through its subsidiaries (collectively, “Valero”), is an international manufacturer and marketer of transportation fuels and petrochemical products.