It was recently reported that the analysts at KeyBanc have raised their price target for Gulfport Energy Corporation (NYSE:GPOR). Let’s shed some light on the development.
A crew of workers drilling down into the earth in search of new petroleum resources.
Gulfport Energy Corporation (NYSE:GPOR) is an independent natural gas-weighted exploration and production company focused on the exploration, acquisition, and production of natural gas, crude oil, and NGL in the US. The company holds a sizable acreage position totaling approximately 73,000 net reservoir acres in the core of the SCOOP.
On May 23, 2025, analysts at KeyBanc Capital Markets raised their price target for Gulfport Energy Corporation (NYSE:GPOR) from $205 to $215, while maintaining an Overweight rating for the stock. The revised target comes as a result of Gulfport’s earnings report for its first quarter of 2025, where the company revealed that its preferred equity shares have been reduced from 3.1 million to 2.3 million, effectively lowering its enterprise value by approximately $200 million.
Michael Hodges, Executive Vice President and CFO of Gulfport Energy Corporation (NYSE:GPOR), stated in the company’s Q1 earnings call:
“We continue to view share repurchases as a compelling capital allocation opportunity and during the first quarter we repurchased 341,000 shares of common stock for approximately $60 million and since the inception of the program, we have repurchased approximately 5.9 million shares of our common stock at an average price of $108.99 lowering our share count by approximately 17% at a weighted average price that is 40% below our current share price.
As of March 31, we had approximately $356 million available under our $1 billion share repurchase program and remain steadfast in our free cash flow allocation framework as we plan to return substantially all of our adjusted free cash flow, excluding discretionary acreage acquisitions to our shareholders through common stock repurchases. We believe our committed approach to share repurchases over the past few years has delivered tremendous value to our shareholders and we will remain opportunistic rather than programmatic, allowing us to allocate capital dynamically when we believe the current valuation does not reflect the strength of our underlying fundamentals. And as such, repurchasing shares at current levels represents a highly attractive use of capital.”
KeyBanc has increased its projections for Gulfport Energy Corporation (NYSE:GPOR)’s share repurchases in 2025 and 2026 to $320 million and $350 million, respectively. The analysts also expect that the company will engage in discretionary acreage acquisitions in 2025, estimated at $60 million. It must be noted that Gulfport has already forecasted its average daily natural gas production to increase approximately 20% by the fourth quarter of 2025, when compared to Q1 levels.
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