CNX Resources: Hit the Gas - [Business Breakdowns, EP.152]

This is Matt Reustle. Today, we are going into the land of oil and gas to break down CNX. The history of CNX dates back over 150 years. When it comes to energy production, the company's evolution has been very comparable to that of the United States.  Our guest today is James Wilson, manager of The Huginn Fund at Phoenix Asset Management. We discuss the CNX backstory and how it took its coal roots to build this massive natural gas business. We also cover what differentiates CNX's management team and operational strategy relative to Exploration & Production (E&P) peers. Please enjoy this breakdown of CNX. Colossus Recruiting - Find your next role or hire. For the full show notes, transcript, and links to the best content to learn more, check out the episode page here. ----- This episode is brought to you by Tegus, the only investment research platform built for fundamental investors. How hard do you work to get the insights you need to make a great investment decision? How many hours do you spend digging through public records and expert transcripts, or manually updating complex models? Investors should compete on their ability to analyze investments, not how well they aggregate data. That’s why Tegus offers a unified, end-to-end research platform that combines robust qualitative content sets, up-to-date financial data, management and culture checks, and more — all in the same easy-to-use, streamlined user experience. 95% of the top 20 global private equity firms use Tegus. Shouldn’t you? Learn more and get your free trial at tegus.com/patrick. ----- Business Breakdowns is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Business Breakdowns, visit joincolossus.com/episodes. Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: @JoinColossus | @patrick_oshag | @zbfuss | @ReustleMatt | @domcooke Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (https://thepodcastconsultant.com). Show Notes (00:00:00) Welcome to Business Breakdowns (00:02:32) First Question - The History and Evolution of CNX (00:03:17) Understanding the Business Model  (00:10:33) The Transition from Coal to Natural Gas in the US (00:16:44) Gathering and Compressing Assets to Leverage Fixed Costs  (00:21:45) Understanding the Unit Economics of CNX (00:28:27) The Competitive Landscape in Drilling (00:30:05) The Engineering Excellence and Leadership at CNX (00:30:46) Exploring the Potential of the Utica Shale (00:32:27) The Economics of Drilling (00:34:27) Managing the Volatility of Natural Gas Prices (00:41:37) The Impact of Regulation on the Drilling Industry (00:44:59) The Role of Acquisitions in Expanding Reserves (00:51:14) Lessons Learned From CNX