ConocoPhillips Qatar Output Falls 4% as Middle East Conflict Cuts Into Upstream Results
The Middle East conflict stripped 98,000 boe/d from ConocoPhillips second-quarter production, showing how broadly Gulf disruptions are reshaping American major volumes.
ConocoPhillips reported on Monday (2026-08-10) that its second-quarter 2026 production fell 98,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, or four percent, from the same period a year earlier, with the company explicitly attributing the drop to the Middle East conflict's impact on its Qatari operations.5
The company held no operational control over the disruption. Yet it still erased the gains that record Permian output delivered in the same quarter. That is the arithmetic problem facing American majors with equity exposure in Qatar: upstream performance in the Lower 48 cannot fully compensate for a geopolitical subtraction of this scale.5
ConocoPhillips' Lower 48 business produced 1.479 million barrels of oil equivalent per day in the second quarter, including 720,000 boe/d from the Delaware Basin alone. Those are strong numbers on their own terms. But organic growth from the Lower 48 was more than offset by the Qatar impact and higher Surmont royalties, as the company put it in its results statement.5
For the first half of 2026, ConocoPhillips said production was down 113,000 boe/d against the same period a year ago. After adjusting for closed acquisitions and dispositions, the decline was 98,000 boe/d — confirming that portfolio changes explain little of the gap.5
ConocoPhillips was not the first major to flag Qatar-linked volume losses. Shell warned on 2026-07-07 that the Middle East conflict would cut its Integrated Gas second-quarter output to between 610,000 and 650,000 boe/d, down sharply from 909,000 boe/d in the first quarter, with Qatari volumes explicitly cited as the driver.3
The scale of Gulf disruption in aggregate is larger still. In its May Short-Term Energy Outlook, the EIA assessed that Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE, Qatar, and Bahrain collectively shut in 10.5 million barrels per day of crude oil production in April 2026.1 The EIA assumed in its June 2026 STEO that the Strait of Hormuz would remain effectively closed in the near term, with oil shipments resuming only in the third quarter.2
Aramco, for its part, reported total hydrocarbon production of 9.5 million boe/d in the second quarter "despite historical supply constraints impacting energy markets," according to its results statement, without quantifying the disruption's direct production impact.4
The earnings picture was not uniformly grim. ConocoPhillips posted second-quarter 2026 net earnings of $3.9 billion, or $3.23 per share, more than double the $2.0 billion, or $1.56 per share, recorded in the second quarter of 2025. Adjusted earnings of $4.0 billion, or $3.24 per share, compared with $1.8 billion adjusted in the year-earlier period. Higher realised prices, not volume, drove those gains.5
CEO Ryan Lance described the results as reflecting "exceptional operational performance" and "record production" from the company's Permian position. The volume decline, by his characterisation, was external — a conflict effect rather than a company execution failure. That framing holds up numerically: the Lower 48 delivered, and Qatar subtracted.5
The LNG read-through is live. Shell's flagged drop in Integrated Gas output includes volumes with Qatari origin, and ICE Endex TTF front-month was trading at €55.50 per MWh at 08:15 UTC on 2026-08-10, while JKM Asian LNG front-month stood at $21.11 per MMBtu at 13:52 UTC on the same date. ICE Brent crude front-month was at $85.01 per barrel at that timestamp, with NYMEX WTI front-month at $80.02.3
The production gap ConocoPhillips is carrying — 98,000 boe/d below year-ago levels — will not close until Qatari access normalises. Whether the Hormuz passage reopens on the timeline the EIA assumed in June 2026 is the number traders and producers are watching now.2,5