Congratulations to Devon Energy: moments ago it announced that with Goldman as underwriter, it became the first company to successfully access the equity offering window in a long, long time sell equity in the form of 55 million shares in stock, or just over $1 billion in proceeds assuming today’s closing price of $20.33. The proceeds will be used “for general corporate purposes, including bolstering the Company’s liquidity position, reducing indebtedness and funding the Company’s capital program.” In other words, Devon is rusing to sell equity while it still can sell equity.

Devon Energy Corporation (DVN) (“Devon” or the “Company”) announced today that it intends to commence a registered public offering of 55,000,000 shares of its common stock, subject to market conditions. The Company also expects to grant the underwriters an option to purchase up to 8,250,000 additional shares of stock at the underwriters’ election. Net proceeds from the offering are expected to be used for general corporate purposes, including bolstering the Company’s liquidity position, reducing indebtedness and funding the Company’s capital program.

Goldman, Sachs & Co. is acting as book-running manager for the offering.

And while we congratulate management for confirming that even this modest bounce in oil is to be faded (as otherwise Devon would not be selling shares when its stock price is pennies away from a decade low), we offer our condolences to anyone who bought DVN stock after yesterday’s announcement that it would slash its dividend by 75%, something which supposedly had been priced in because the stock did not tank. Well it tanked today: as of this moment, DVN was down 6% and will likely continue to drift lower, making future equity offering once the just issued $1 billion runs out, that much more dilutive if not impossible.

Finally, if equity investors are so desperate that they will buy equity offerings by E&P companies, that means that the war of attrition between shale and Saudi Arabia will be far longer than most expect.

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