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About Hess

Hess Corporation is an independent energy company focused on the exploration and production of crude oil and natural gas. Its portfolio centers on two anchors: a large, offshore discovery position in Guyana's Stabroek Block, operated by ExxonMobil, where Hess holds a 30 percent working interest, and unconventional shale acreage in the Bakken formation of North Dakota, where it is a top-tier operator across drilling, completions, and produced-water handling. Smaller producing interests sit in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico and offshore Malaysia and the Joint Development Area with Thailand, the last two weighted toward natural gas. A separate midstream segment, held through publicly traded Hess Midstream, gathers and processes Bakken volumes. Upstream production, and increasingly Guyana, drives the bulk of profit.

Investors track the pending combination with Chevron, which if completed would eliminate Hess as a standalone equity, and the arbitration ExxonMobil and CNOOC have pursued over pre-emption rights on the Guyana stake. Beyond the deal, durable questions include the pace of Stabroek development sanctions and floating production vessel additions, Bakken well productivity and inventory depth at prevailing service costs, exposure to OPEC+ policy through oil price realizations, and the company's leverage profile relative to peers. Governance features include long tenure of the founding family through chief executive John Hess, the retained economic interest in Hess Midstream, and dividend and buyback pacing that has historically trailed the largest integrated majors.

The company traces to Leon Hess, who began reselling residual fuel oil in New Jersey in 1933 and built Hess into an integrated refiner, marketer, and producer over the postwar decades, listing publicly after the 1968 merger with Amerada Petroleum to form Amerada Hess. Under his son John Hess, who became chief executive in 1995, the company progressively shed downstream assets, exiting refining in 2013 and spinning off retail gasoline stations as Hess Retail, sold to Marathon Petroleum in 2014. The 2013 restructuring converted Hess into a pure exploration and production company. In 2017 it created Hess Midstream Partners, later reorganized as Hess Midstream LP. Chevron announced the acquisition of Hess in October 2023.

Hess sells crude oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids into wholesale markets rather than to end consumers, with realizations tied to Brent, WTI, and regional benchmarks net of quality and transport differentials. Guyanese crude is lifted by tanker under an entitlement schedule shared with ExxonMobil and CNOOC and marketed to refiners in Europe and Asia. Bakken barrels move by pipeline and crude-by-rail to Gulf Coast, East Coast, and Pacific Northwest refiners, with midstream fees paid to Hess Midstream. Competitive position rests on low-cost Guyana barrels with among the lowest breakevens in global offshore, and on operational scale in the Bakken against peers such as ConocoPhillips, Continental Resources, and Chord Energy.

Company profile by LineVest editorial. Journalism, not investment advice. Commission a full SEC-based report on Hess →