ConocoPhillips CEO on mergers and acquisitions: “Been there, done that”
Ryan Lance’s response was crystal clear.
Asked a few days after Devon Energy said it is paying more than $20 billion for Coterra Energy, the chief executive officer of ConocoPhillips, Houston, was asked if there’s a role for his team in a wave of oil-and-gas sector consolidation that was worth about $65 billion in 2025.
“We’ve done our heavy lifting on the M&A side,” Lance said on a Feb. 5 conference call discussing Conoco’s fourth-quarter results and 2026 outlook. “I’ve never seen the portfolio in better shape and [there are] really no strategic gaps that we can identify […] I can see the rationale for some of the M&A activity and in terms of capturing the synergy. But we’ve been there, done that.”
Most recently, ConocoPhillips acquired Marathon Oil in late 2024 for $16.5 billion (plus the assumption of $4.6 billion in debt) to bolster its holdings in the Delaware, Eagle Ford, and Bakken basins. Lance and his team completed the integration of Marathon last year and booked more than $1 billion in annualized synergies.
During the fourth quarter, total production in the Lower 48—which accounted for 60% of ConocoPhillips’ total segment earnings over the past 2 years—totaled nearly 1.44 MMobe/d versus 1.31 MMboe/d in late 2024. ConocoPhillips’ overall output during the fourth quarter was 2.32 MMboe/d versus 2.18 MMboe/d in the same period of the previous year.
Executives are forecasting that ConocoPhillips’ total production will rise only slightly this year to 2.33-2.36 MMboe/d. The financial focus will be on efficiency. Lance and chief financial officer Andy O’Brien said the company’s 2026 capital spending budget is about $12 billion, a reduction of nearly $600 million from 2025, while adjusted operating costs will be about $10.2 billion, $400 million less than last year.
Shares of ConocoPhillips (Ticker: COP) were down more than 2% to roughly $104.80 in afternoon trading Feb. 5. They are, however, still up more than 10% over the past 6 months, a move that has increased the company’s market capitalization to more than $130 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.