Diamondback production and output ‘leveling off’ late this year and into 2026
Executives of Diamondback Energy Inc., Midland, Tex., plan to maintain the company’s oil production at slightly more than 500,000 b/d in 2026, in line with what the company averaged in the third quarter.
That production plan is being paired with a capital spending forecast of roughly $925 million/quarter as the company emphasizes maintaining output after a 2025 in which chief executive officer Kaes Van’t Hof said the company had to pull back about $500 million in planned spending mid-year (OGJ Online, Aug. 5, 2025) given market participants’ concerns about both oversupply and weakening demand.
“That’s kind of the new baseline,” Van’t Hof said on a Nov. 4 conference call regarding producing about 505,000 b/d. “We’re just kind of leveling off in this kind of $875 million to $975 million range to hold that new baseline.”
Van’t Hof told analysts on the conference call that the demand picture looks strong these days and that “supply is the hot debate right now.” In a letter accompanying Diamondback’s third-quarter earnings report, he added that the company’s leaders are more aligned with OPEC’s forecast that oversupply through mid-2026 will be less than 500,000 b/d than they are with the International Energy Agency’s outlook of a nearly 4 million b/d surplus.
Diamondback, which produced nearly 504,000 b/d of oil in Q3 from its roughly 750,000 net acres in the Permian basin, is content to hold its production levels steady but still be prepared to either boost or bring down output should market conditions change significantly.
“We firmly believe there is no need for incremental oil barrels until there is a proper price signal,” Van’t Hof wrote in his letter.
In the 3 months that ended Sept. 30, Diamondback’s total production came in at nearly 943,000 boe/d, up from about 920,000 boe/d in the second quarter. The company’s average price/bbl moved up to $64.60 from $63.23 in the spring but was still 12% below the figure from 2024’s third quarter. Its combined price ticked up slightly to $39.73/boe from $39.61 in Q2. Those data points translated into net income of $1.09 billion on total revenues of more than $3.9 billion.
Looking to the current quarter, Van’t Hof and his team are forecasting oil output of 505,000 to 515,000 b/d. (That figure will dip to about 505,000 b/d after the company completes an asset sale to its Viper Energy mineral and royalty subsidiary.) They expect total production to be between 927,000 and 963,000 boe/d.
Shares of Diamondback (Ticker: FANG) were down nearly 2% to $138.69 in early-afternoon trading Nov. 4, with broader market indices all down more than 1%. Diamondback stock is essentially flat over the past 6 months, leaving its market value at about $40 billion.
About the Author
Geert De Lombaerde
Senior Editor
A native of Belgium, Geert De Lombaerde has more than two decades of business journalism experience and writes about markets and economic trends for Endeavor Business Media publications Healthcare Innovation, IndustryWeek, FleetOwner, Oil & Gas Journal and T&D World. With a degree in journalism from the University of Missouri, he began his reporting career at the Business Courier in Cincinnati and later was managing editor and editor of the Nashville Business Journal. Most recently, he oversaw the online and print products of the Nashville Post and reported primarily on Middle Tennessee’s finance sector as well as many of its publicly traded companies.