Why oil, gas giant ConocoPhillips stock bucked industry trends

ConocoPhillips CEO Ryan Lance on the decline in oil prices, where the opportunities are for the company, the potential impact of the partial government shutdown and the regulatory relief under the Trump administration.

Shares in ConocoPhillips, one of the biggest U.S. oil exploration and production companies, rose more than 10 percent in 2018, bucking industry trends. CEO Ryan Lance said offering investors both resilience to lower oil prices as well as participation and growth were crucial.

“We’ve really embraced the volatility and the commodity price cycle,” Lance said during an exclusive interview with FOX Business’ Maria Bartiromo on Wednesday. “So we’ve told our team we need to work at $40 as well as we need to work at $80.”

U.S. oil market volatility skyrocketed in 2018, with prices hitting a four-year high before embarking on their longest losing streak in three decades. U.S. crude lost more than 25 percent, while Brent ended 2018 down more than 21 percent.

Ticker	Security	Last	Change	Change %
COP	CONOCOPHILLIPS	112.31	-0.59	-0.52%

But ConocoPhillips plans to keep its 2019 capital expenditure budget flat at $6.1 billion, matching its 2018 levels. According to Lance, the company can sustain production at levels less than $4 billion for “decades.” In order to accomplish this, Lance said, they must “embrace technology.”

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“We are not funding things that don’t have a cost of supply that would work at $40 WTI price and we are really doing those things around the world globally in our business using technology, driving the cost down.”

However, ConocoPhillips’ stock prices are still recovering from oils price slump that began five years ago.