-- Tudor, Pickering, Holt on Thursday maintained its hold rating on the shares of Canadian Natural Resources (CNQ.TO, CNQ) with a C$70.00 price target following first-quarter results from the country's No.1 oil producer.
"While generally expected given net debt levels exiting 2025, highlights from the overall update include the formal step-up in return-of-capital alongside the ~4% beat on Q1 cash flow. On Q1 results, headline metrics include C$4.37B AFFO vs. TPHe/Street consensus C$4.19B/C$4.26B (C$2.09/shr vs. TPHe/Street C$2.01/C$2.01), with the delta vs. our model owing to realizations and expenses more than offsetting production. 1,643mboepd came in slightly below TPHe/Street 1,657/1,651, primarily driven by Oil Sands with 275mbopd In Situ comparing to TPHe/Street 279/276 and 588mbopd OSM comparing to TPHe/Street 594/595, though the April run-rate within OSM of 630mbopd bodes well for Q2 (TPHe/Street 587/587). On the balance sheet and return of capital, net debt is now sufficiently below C$16B to have driven CNQ to plan for returning 75% of FCF to shareholders. This is already starting to take effect, with April buybacks already totaling ~$0.3B, matching full Q1's buyback activity ($1.5B in return of capital, consisting of $1.2B in dividends and $0.3B in share repurchases); no change to TPHe H2'27+ at strip for the final uplift to 100% with ND (covers equity, commodity and economic research from major banks and research firms in North America, Asia and Europe. Research providers may contact us here: https://www..com/contact-us) Price: $59.80, Change: $-2.46, Percent Change: -3.95%