Diamondback’s Van’t Hof growing ‘more confident about the macro’
Diamondback Energy Inc., Midland, will keep 2026 production flat versus last year but chief executive officer Kaes Van’t Hof said his team has grown “more confident about the macro” and remains prepared to quickly ramp up activity if market conditions warrant doing so.
Van’t Hof and other Diamondback executives plan to spend $3.6-3.9 billion in capital this year, about $150 million of which will be “more experimental or exploration-type” money. A key, albeit relatively small, target for 2026 capital—which is up from $3.5 billion in 2025—will be the Barnett and Woodford shales, the deepest development zones in the Midland basin. Diamondback has assembled the rights to almost 200,000 acres for work in those zones and leaders expect that could materialize into 878 gross (561 net) locations over time.
After notching some strong early results (see chart) from two dozen Barnett and Woodford wells, Diamondback will spend about $125 million this year to further develop the zones. Another focus area will be driving down costs. Today, the operator is spending about $1,000 per lateral ft drilled—Diamondback’s average is closer to $600—and the aim is to finish the year around $800.
The early Barnett production will help Diamondback slightly increase its oil production this year from 2025’s average of 497,200 b/d. Van’t Hof and his team are eyeing 505,000 b/d this year with total expected production of 926,000-962,000 boe/d versus last year’s 921,000 boe/d.
On a Feb. 24 conference call with analysts and investors, Van’t Hof said he’s feeling better than in recent quarters about that production number possibly moving up. The bigger picture for the oil-and-gas sector, he said, has grown a bit brighter.
“Some people have been talking about [oversupplying the market] for 2 years. It just hasn’t seemed to happen as aggressively as some expected,” Van’t Hof said. “As we turn to higher demand in the summer and driving season […] people will start to find reasons to be less bearish […] In general, we just feel more confident about the macro after a couple of big shocks last year on the supply side and the demand side.”
In the last 3 months of 2025, Diamondback posted a net loss of more than $1.4 billion due to a $3.6 billion impairment charge because of lower commodity prices’ effect on the company’s reserves. Adjusted EBITA fell to $2.0 billion from $2.5 billion in late 2024 and revenues during the quarter slipped to nearly $3.4 billion from $3.7 billion.
Shares of Diamondback (Ticker: FANG) were essentially flat at $173.68 in early-afternoon trading on Feb. 24. Over the past 6 months, they are still up more than 20% and the company’s market value is now $50 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.