Black Stone Minerals (BSM) Q3 earnings: what to expect

What happened

Black Stone Minerals, a mineral rights owner, will report quarterly results after market hours on Monday. Last quarter it reported revenue of $149 million, down 6.6% from a year earlier, while beating analyst estimates for EBITDA and earnings per share.

Confirmed

Global impact / market context

The market expects revenue to fall 13.9% this quarter, a steeper drop than last year's 1.8% decline. That matters because weaker revenue from mineral rights, which are payments tied to oil and gas output, would directly reduce the cash available to distribute to investors.

Analyst inference

Analysts have kept their estimates mostly unchanged over the past 30 days, suggesting they expect business to stay the course, even though the company has missed revenue estimates several times over two years. Peers like Weatherford saw revenues fall 7.2%.

Analyst inference

What to watch

1. Watch whether revenue falls by the 13.9% that analysts expect, a sharper decline than the 1.8% drop recorded in the same quarter a year earlier. Confirmed
2. Watch whether the company again beats profit estimates, as it did last quarter with EBITDA, which means earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation, and earnings per share. Proposed
3. Watch oil production levels, which were flat last year. Lower output would reduce royalty revenue and the cash available for investor distributions, given the expected revenue decline. Analyst inference

Evidence

• stockstory.org