Morgan Stanley analyst Devin McDermott noted that Exploration & Production stocks have trailed the market for a third straight year in 2019 as much of the E&P industry has struggled to deliver free cash flow and returns. The changing landscape in Energy favors large-cap, diversified E&Ps and Integrated Oil companies, contends McDermott, who reiterates ConocoPhillips (COP) and Noble Energy (NBL) as his top picks in E&P and Chevron (CVX) as his top pick in Integrated Oil. Diversified large-caps have outperformed shale pure plays by about 35% year-to-date and he expects this trend to continue through 2020, McDermott added. Morgan Stanley oil strategist Martijn Rats sees Brent prices being range-bound and "anchored around" $60 per barrel in 2020, while he cut his 2020 Henry Hub price forecast for natural gas to $2.25/MMBtu from $2.50/MMBtu as he sees downside to benchmarks in Europe and Asia as oversupply is set to worsen in 2020, McDermott tells investors.

Notable companies reporting before tomorrow's open, with earnings consensus, include Exxon Mobil (XOM), consensus $2.20... Chevron (CVX), consensus $2.87... AbbVie (ABBV), consensus $2.23... HCA Healthcare (HCA), consensus $5.01... Colgate-Palmolive (CL), consensus 81c... Charter (CHTR), consensus $7.92... AutoNation (AN), consensus $4.27.

Chevron announced that its 50% owned affiliate Tengizchevroil has safely commenced operations at its Wellhead Pressure Management Project, or WPMP, at the Tengiz oil field in Kazakhstan. TCO achieved this milestone by converting its first metering station at Tengiz to low pressure and activating the associated Pressure Boost Facility, or PBF. This marks important progress for TCO's overall expansion project at Tengiz. The WPMP is designed to maintain the existing processing plants' full capacity by lowering the flowing pressure at the wellheads and then boosting the pressure to the existing plants.