Hess Logs Lower Quarterly Profit on Weaker Oil

Hess Corp. has reported $559 million in adjusted net income for the first quarter (Q1), down about 42 percent from the same three-month period a year ago as lower oil prices offset higher natural gas prices.

Adjusted earnings per share post-dilution came at $1.81. That beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.77, averaged from projections by brokerage analysts.

“The decrease in adjusted after-tax earnings compared with the prior-year quarter primarily reflects lower realized oil selling prices and sales volumes in the first quarter of 2025”, the New York City-based oil and gas explorer and producer said in an online statement.

Before adjustments for extraordinary or nonrecurring items, net profit for the January-March 2025 period was $430 million, compared to $972 million for Q1 2024.

At 476,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day (boed), net production was steady by year-on-year comparison. The Bakken shale onshore the United States had the biggest contribution at 195,000 boed, followed by the Stabroek Block offshore Guyana (183,000 boed), the Gulf of America (41,000 boed) and the North Malay Basin offshore Malaysia (57,000 boed).

Hess expects to raise production to 480,000-490,000 boed in Q2. In Q3, Hess and its Stabroek partners expect to put onstream the fourth and biggest development in the block, Yellowtail. The project’s newbuild floating production, storage and offloading vessel arrived in the South American country earlier this month. Yellowtail is planned to have an initial production of about 250,000 bpd.

While production was stable, Hess’ average realized crude selling price fell from $80.06 a barrel in Q1 2024 to $71.22 in Q1 2025.

On the other hand its average gas selling price increased from $4.62 per thousand cubic feet in Q1 2024 to $4.89 in Q1 2025. Natural gas liquids also rose from $22.97 per barrel in Q1 2024 to $24.08 in Q1 2025.

Upstream net profit totaled $434 million, compared to $997 million for Q1 2024. Adjusted segment net profit was $563 million.

Meanwhile the midstream segment generated $70 million in net profit for Q1 2025, up from $67 million for the same period last year.

Total sales and other operating revenues totaled $2.91 billion, down from $3.31 billion for Q1 2024. Operating activities provided $1.4 billion in net cash, up from $885 million for Q1 2024.

Hess exited Q1 2025 with $1.32 billion in cash and cash equivalents. Meanwhile its current portion of long-term debt stood at $25 million.

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