Oil & Gas Stock Roundup: Exxon's Petrochem Plant Buy, WildHorse's Eagle Ford Acquisition & More

It was a week where oil prices posted their largest single day gain since Dec 1 and natural gas futures spiked higher to levels last seen in Jan.

On the news front, integrated major ExxonMobil Corp. (NYSE:XOM) agreed to buy a refining and petrochemical plant in Singapore from Jurong Aromatics, while energy explorer WildHorse Resource Development Corp. (NYSE:WRD) struck a deal to acquire Eagle Ford acreage for $625 million in cash and stock.

Overall, it was a good week for the sector. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures gained 3.5% to close at $47.84 per barrel, while natural gas prices jumped 4.8% to $3.424 per million Btu (MMBtu). (See the last ‘Oil & Gas Stock Roundup’ here: Shell (LON:RDSa), Concho Resources Reports Strong Q1, Apache (NYSE:APA) Misses .)

Oil prices scored their first gain in four weeks, bolstered by suggestions from top exporters that the OPEC and non-OPEC countries might expand output cuts until the end of Mar 2018. The commodity was further encouraged by a big draw in weekly U.S. crude inventories.

Natural gas also turned higher following a smaller-than-expected storage build.

Recap of the Week’s Most Important Stories

1. The world’s largest publicly traded oil company ExxonMobil Corp. recently announced that it is acquiring a massive petrochemical plant in Singapore from Jurong Aromatics Corp. Pte Ltd. at a discounted price. ExxonMobil refused to reveal the exact acquisition price.

The transaction is expected to be completed in the second half of 2017. The plant, which is located on Jurong Island in Singapore, is believed to be one of the largest in the world. The plant was built for $2.4 billion and has an annual production capacity of 1.4 million tons. It is likely to provide operational and logistical synergies for ExxonMobil’s neighboring integrated refining and petrochemical complex.

ExxonMobil's largest refining-petrochemical complex is in Singapore and it has a crude oil processing capacity of 592,000 barrels per day and two steam crackers. Acquisition of the Jurong aromatics plant will boost ExxonMobil’s aromatics production in Singapore to more than 3.5 million tons per year, including 1.8 million tons of paraxylene.(Read more: Petrobras Q1 Earnings Buoyed by Higher Oil, Cost Cuts .)

Price Performance

The following table shows the price movement of some the major oil and gas players over the past week and during the last 6 months.

Company	Get The News You Want Read market moving news with a personalized feed of stocks you care about. Get The App Last Week	Last 6 Months
XOM	-0.06%	-2.85%
CVX	-1.48%	-1.17%
COP	-1.22%	+8.78%
OXY	+1.44%	-9.59%
SLB	-0.88%	-10.11%
RIG	-2.39%	-1.91%
VLO	+2.50%	+1.36%
TSO	+2.11%	-5.31%

Over the course of last week, the Energy Select Sector SPDR – a popular way to track energy companies – rose by 0.68%. The best performer was downstream operator Valero Energy Corp. (NYSE:VLO) whose stock price increased 2.50%.

But longer-term, over the last 6 months, the sector tracker is down 3.61%. Oilfield services giant Schlumberger Ltd. (NYSE:SLB) was the major laggard during this period, experiencing a 10.11% price decline.

What’s Next in the Energy World?

With the Q1 earnings season effectively behind us, market participants will be closely tracking the regular releases i.e. the U.S. government statistics on oil and natural gas. Energy traders will also be focusing on the Baker Hughes data on rig count.

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