CNX Resources Corporation (CNX): what the price assumes

boothcheck covers CNX Resources Corporation (CNX) but does not put one priced-in number on it: here the defensible answer is the evidence rather than a point estimate. boothcheck publishes no house fair value, target price, or buy/sell rating. Narrative composed 2026-07-25.

Generated: 2026-09-07 · Exported: 2026-09-09 · Source: https://boothcheck.com/report/CNX

Headline

What The Price Assumes (Inversion)

The assumption today's price embeds, recovered by inverting the valuation.

How unusual the bet is: n/a

Valuation X-Ray

The price is supported by asset-based and earnings-power and relative-multiple and growth-DCF value. A value/asset-supported name, not a pure growth bet.

How the valuation models price the stock relative to the market price. Price/FV above 1.0 means the market pays more than that lens defends (expensive); at or below 1.0 the lens can defend the price.

Families that justify the price: Asset, Earnings, Relative, Growth

The models below discount at their own flat-beta convention rates (cost of equity 9.3%, WACC 6.9%); the inversion above states its own rate.

Per-Model Detail (n=12)

Economic-Unit Decomposition (Sum Of The Parts)

One or more material disclosed units has unresolved economics. Unknown/general is not evidence of homogeneity: segment SOTP is primary but incomplete, consolidated cash flow may remain only a secondary cross-check when every unit shares an enterprise basis, and one sector multiple or target margin is withheld.

No total common-equity value is stated. One or more material units lack a supported unit value. The displayed values are an indicative subtotal; consolidated debt and cash cannot be applied to a fraction of the company.

Solvency

Operating profit is negative or near zero and the company has no demonstrated through-cycle (mid-cycle) operating margin to normalize against, so years-to-repay cannot be computed honestly.

Operating profit is negative or near zero and there is no demonstrated through-cycle (mid-cycle) operating margin to normalize against, so interest coverage cannot be computed honestly.

Bullet Takeaways

• CNX produces natural gas from two Appalachian segments, Shale and Coalbed Methane, in a basin its own 10-K calls highly fragmented and not dominated by any single producer, and at roughly 2.9 billion dollars of trailing revenue it is one of the smaller operators competing there.
• The largest risk is that recent profit reads as a hedging artifact rather than a production story, since the commodity derivative line swung from a 528 million dollar loss in the first quarter of 2025 to a small gain a year later.
• Second-quarter results are due the morning of July 30, 2026, and the repurchase pace is the number to watch, with about 2.4 billion dollars of authorization still available after the board enlarged it in January.

Bull Case

Land is the part of this business nobody puts on a slide. CNX has operated in southwestern Pennsylvania and West Virginia long enough to hold the surface as well as the gas beneath it, and the 10-K puts that first among the things it thinks it does better than the next operator: low-cost operations and legacy surface acreage position provide us with significant competitive advantages that position us for long-term value creation. Surface rights are unglamorous. They are also what decides whether a well pad costs what the plan said it would, because a producer who has to negotiate for every location pays for the privilege in money and in calendar time.

That matters more here than in most extractive businesses, because Appalachia does not reward size the way the Permian does. The filing is blunt about the shape of the contest: competition among producers is based primarily on acreage position, drilling and operating costs. There is no volume discount to win. EQT reported 10.3 billion dollars of trailing revenue and EXE 14.3 billion, against CNX at roughly 2.9 billion, and none of that gap converts into a structural cost edge for the bigger names in a basin where the wells are drilled one lease at a time. The Coalbed Methane segment carries depletion of 85 cents per Mcfe, and its depreciation, depletion and amortization ran 60 million dollars in both 2025 and 2024, which is what a mature, low-decline asset looks like on an income statement: expensive to buy once, cheap to keep.

Capital allocation is where the story gets unusual. CNX has not paid a common dividend since 2016. Everything goes to buying its own shares back, and the effect is visible in the one place it cannot be faked: the share count has fallen about 5.4% a year over the four years to March 2026. Cumulative repurchase authorization reached 2.9 billion dollars, of which roughly 0.4 billion remained at the end of 2025, and on January 29, 2026 the board added another 2.0 billion, restoring about 2.4 billion of headroom. A management team that keeps retiring stock rather than announcing a dividend is making a statement about where it thinks the value is, and it has been making it for years rather than for a quarter.

There is a second revenue line that most gas producers do not have. CNX sells environmental attributes, which the filing lists as carbon credits, air quality credits, renewable or alternative energy credits, methane capture credits, methane performance certificates, emission reductions, offsets and/or allowances. Capturing methane that would otherwise vent from legacy coal workings is an activity the company was going to perform anyway; being paid separately for it turns a compliance cost into a margin line. It is a modest slice of the whole, and its pricing depends on policy that changes with administrations, but it is genuine incremental cash off assets already owned.

Against all of that sits the most striking feature of the current price: every family of method used to triangulate this business lands above it. Peer multiples sit closest, the asset-value approaches furthest, and the cash-flow approaches in between. The bear will point out, fairly, that the trailing earnings feeding several of those methods were helped by the hedge book reversing. That concession is real. What it does not touch is the acreage, the low-decline coalbed base, or a share count that has shrunk every year regardless of which way gas prices went.

Bear Case

Repurchasing stock is the entire capital-return policy here, and the balance sheet funding it keeps no slack whatsoever. At the close of 2025 the company held under one million dollars of cash and equivalents; the revolving facility does the work an actual cash balance would do at most companies. Then look at the order of events. On January 29, 2026 the board added 2.0 billion dollars to the repurchase authorization. A month later, on February 26, 2026, CNX closed a 500 million dollar senior notes offering. Retiring equity with term debt is a legitimate choice. It is also a leveraged bet on the realized gas price over the life of those notes, made by the same people whose compensation moves with the share count they are shrinking.

The price makes that bet specific. At 34.25 dollars the market is paying roughly 37 times a mid-cycle year of operating income, and that multiple only resolves if operating growth stays pinned at the company's self-funding ceiling for about five years. The rate itself is not exotic; CNX has delivered it recently. The duration is the ask. Of comparable fast growers, only about a third held that pace for anything like five years. If growth fades on the ordinary schedule instead, the multiple has to come down to whatever a cyclical Appalachian gas producer normally commands, and nothing about the acreage position prevents that arithmetic from running.

Why it might fade is not mysterious, and the 10-K says it plainly in its own risk language: Prices for natural gas and NGLs are volatile and can fluctuate widely based upon a number of factors beyond our control, including supply and demand for our products. The consequence is spelled out one line later: If natural gas prices decrease or operational efforts are unsuccessful, CNX may be required to record write-downs of the quantity and value of our proved natural gas properties. Reserve write-downs are not merely accounting. They shrink the borrowing base that the revolver, and therefore the buyback, depends on.

Two structural exposures compound that. The company has committed to firm transportation and processing agreements many of which have minimum volume delivery commitments that obligate us to pay fixed demand charges or fees on minimum volumes regardless of actual volume throughput, which converts a variable-cost business into a partly fixed-cost one exactly when volumes fall. And the customer base is narrow: in 2025, sales to Citadel Energy Marketing LLC and to NRG Business Marketing LLC each exceeded 10% of revenue from contracts with external customers. Two marketers carrying that much of the book is a negotiating position, not a moat.

Finally, the earnings that make the stock look inexpensive deserve a closer read. In the first quarter of 2025 the commodity derivative line took a 528 million dollar loss; a year later the same line was slightly positive. Across full-year 2025 the unrealized mark was a 278 million dollar gain, against an unrealized loss of 453 million the year before. None of that is production. It is the value of contracts that will settle later, marked today, and it flows straight through the top line of a company whose trailing profit is currently the argument for owning it. The debt behind the buyback, by contrast, does not get marked back. An aggregate principal amount of $600 million of 7.25% Senior Notes due March 2032 sits in the stack alongside a current portion of long-term debt at 208 million dollars, and those coupons are paid in cash in every gas price environment.

Valuation

Two honest readings of this company point in opposite directions, and the hedge book is why. That disagreement, not any single figure, is what a buyer at today's price is actually adjudicating.

Start with what the price assumes. At 34.25 dollars the market is paying roughly 37 times a mid-cycle year of operating income, and the only way that resolves is if operating growth holds at the company's self-funding ceiling for about five years. The calculation sits on a 7.94% cost of capital, and it is sensitive in a particular way: shifting the assumed growth rate by a single percentage point moves the required run by years rather than months, which makes this a bet on duration more than on pace. Measured against CNX's own record, the pace is within reach. Measured against how such runs usually end, it is not comfortable: only about a third of comparable fast growers sustained that level for anything close to five years. The bet the price makes is on persistence.

Now the other reading. Every family of method lands above the current price. The peer-multiple approaches sit nearest to it, the asset-value approaches furthest above, with the cash-flow methods in between. That is the profile of a value-supported name rather than a growth bet, and it is not a subtle pattern; nothing in the standard toolkit calls this price a stretch on trailing figures.

The two readings can both be right because they run on different bases. The static lenses take trailing GAAP results as given, including book value per share of $28.86 and trailing earnings per share of $7.50, both measured through a year in which the derivative book reversed hard in the company's favour. The through-the-cycle read averages the years when hedges pay with the years when they cost, and lands somewhere considerably less flattering. Neither basis is dishonest. A reader has to decide which one describes the cash CNX will actually collect, and the peer cohort suggests humility: OVV posted a 5.1% trailing operating margin over the same window in which EQT posted 46.6%, a spread far too wide to be explained by drilling skill.

Solvency does not offer a cushion so much as a constraint. There is no meaningful cash balance to fall back on, and the funded debt stack carries an aggregate $600 million of 7.25% Senior Notes due March 2032 plus a current portion of long-term debt at 208 million dollars, with a further 500 million dollar notes issue closed in February 2026. The offset is that the share count has fallen about 5.4% a year for four years, which is the same capital doing double duty: every dollar of cash flow directed at the buyback is a dollar not building liquidity, and every retired share raises what the remaining holders own of the acreage. That trade is the position. What it is not is a margin of error if gas prices go against the borrowing base.

Catalysts

The next scheduled information event is second-quarter 2026 results, which the company will report at 6:45 a.m. Eastern on July 30, 2026. The line worth reading first is not the headline profit but the split between gas actually sold and the derivative mark, because the first quarter of 2026 demonstrated how far apart those two can travel in a single period. A print where produced-gas revenue carries the quarter is a materially different signal from one where the hedge book does.

The financing side has already moved this year. CNX closed a 500 million dollar senior notes offering on February 26, 2026, roughly a month after the board raised the repurchase authorization by 2.0 billion dollars on January 29, leaving about 2.4 billion available. Taken together, the company is funding a shrinking share count with term borrowing rather than accumulated cash, and the pace of repurchases disclosed alongside the July results is the cleanest read on how committed management is to continuing that. Watch the borrowing base too: it was increased in May 2025, and it is the mechanism through which a weaker gas strip would reach the buyback first.

Peer Cohorts (Per Segment, With Filing Citations)

Shale (reported)

• EQT (EQT Corporation)
• FY2025 10-K: :PipelineAndOtherMember 2025-01-01 2025-12-31 0000033213 us-gaap:MaterialReconcilingItemsMember eqt:PipelineAndOtherMember 2025-01-01 2025-12-31 0000033213 us-gaap:OperatingSegmentsMember eqt:SalesOfNaturalGasNGLsAndOilAtProductionMember eqt:UpstreamSegmentMember 2024-01-01 2024-12-31 0000033213…
• FY2025 10-K: …sector. Moreover, activist shareholders have introduced proposals to certain companies seeking to force companies to adopt aggressive emission reduction targets or to shift away from more carbon-intensive activities. While we cannot predict the outcomes of such proposals, they could ultimately make it more difficult…
• EXE (EXPAND ENERGY CORPORATION)
• FY2025 10-K: …Shales ("Haynesville"), in Pennsylvania in the Marcellus Shale ("Northeast Appalachia") and in West Virginia and Ohio in the Marcellus and Utica Shales ("Southwest Appalachia"). Our strategy is to create resilient shareholder value through the responsible development of our significant resource plays while continuing…
• FY2025 10-K: …to strengthen our portfolio. We also intend to continue to invest in projects designed to reduce the environmental impact of our production activities. 12 TABLE OF CONTENTS Operating Areas We focus our acquisition, exploration, development and production efforts in the geographic operating areas described below.…
• AR (ANTERO RESOURCES CORPORATION)
• FY2025 10-K: …table sets forth the carrying value of the Utica Shale Properties assets and liabilities held for sale (in thousands): ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ December 31, 2025 ​ Current assets: ​ ​ ​ ​ Accounts receivable ​ $ 782 ​ Accrued revenue ​ ​ 19,399 ​ Other current assets ​ ​ 88 ​ Long-term assets: ​ ​ ​ ​ Unproved properties ​ ​…
• FY2025 10-K: …subject to the terms and conditions thereof. The Utica Shale Properties include approximately 80,000 gross (70,000 net) acres located in Ohio and proved reserves of approximately 600 Bcfe as of December 31, 2025. The Utica Shale Divestiture is expected to close in February 2026, subject to the satisfaction of certain…
• RRC (RANGE RESOURCES CORPORATION)
• FY2025 10-K: …in the United States' shale plays; • general economic conditions worldwide; • the price and availability of, and demand for, alternative and competing forms of energy, such as nuclear, geothermal, hydroelectric, wind and solar; • the level of drilling, completion and production activities by other companies, and…
• FY2025 10-K: …in software, office facilities and other. This plan is expected to achieve modest growth of 2026 production relative to 2025 production volumes, while also supporting our longer-term operational plans. As has been our historical practice, we will periodically review our capital expenditures throughout the year and…
• GPOR (Gulfport Energy Corporation)
• FY2025 10-K: …and completion techniques and drilling results may not meet our expectations for reserves or production. • Our undeveloped leasehold acreage must be drilled before the lease's expiration date in order to hold the lease by production. In highly competitive markets for leasehold acreage, failure to drill sufficient…
• FY2025 10-K: …may not meet our internal return targets, which are dependent upon the current and future market prices for natural gas, oil and NGL, costs associated with producing natural gas, oil and NGL and our ability to add reserves at an acceptable cost. Drilling results in our newer oil and liquids-rich shale plays may be…
• CTRA (COTERRA ENERGY INC.)
• FY2025 10-K: …in 2025 averaged 152 MBbl per day, representing 95 percent of our total company oil production. As of December 31, 2025, we had a total of 1,615.3 producing net wells in the Permian Basin, of which approximately 91 percent are operated by us. During 2025, we invested $1.6 billion of capital and had nine drilling rigs…
• FY2025 10-K: …to operate as a stand-alone company. The Merger is expected to close in the second quarter of 2026, subject to stockholder approvals and other customary closing conditions. Franklin Mountain Energy ("FME") Acquisition In January 2025, we closed on our acquisition of all of the issued and outstanding equity ownership…
• CRK (COMSTOCK RESOURCES, INC.)
• FY2025 10-K: OURCES, INC. • Proximity to premium natural gas markets . Our natural gas production benefits from the strong regional Gulf Coast demand growth driven by a substantial increase in LNG exports, exports to Mexico and new or expanded petrochemical facilities. Producers, such as us, with access to the Gulf Coast natural…
• FY2025 10-K: …• Successful Drilling Program. We spent $1.05 billion on exploration and development activities in 2025, almost exclusively in the Haynesville and Bossier shale. We spent $1.01 billion on drilling and completion activities and an additional $47.1 million on other development costs. We drilled 52 (44.2 net) wells in…
• BKV (BKV CORPORATION)
• FY2025 10-K: …for, properties, including mineral licenses and leases, pipelines, facilities, and equipment to gather, process, compress, store, transport, and market natural gas, NGLs, and related commodities. For instance, in our drilling operations across NEPA and the Barnett from time to time we experience certain issues and…
• FY2025 10-K: …with drilling in swelling clay or shales and unconsolidated formation, particularly in select parts of our Barnett development acreage; • wellbore instability and other geological hazards; • loss of well control and associated hydrocarbon release and/or natural gas clouds; • loss of drilling fluids circulation;…

Coalbed Methane (CBM) (reported)

• EQT (EQT Corporation)
• FY2025 10-K: …as a result of lower pricing, impacting well economics. • Purchase of hydrocarbons in place of 413 Bcfe in connection with the First NEPA Non-Operated Asset Divestiture described in Note 12. • Sale of natural gas in place of 1,563 Bcfe in the NEPA Non-Operated Asset Divestitures described in Note 12. The change in…
• FY2025 10-K: …2,382 Bcfe. Extensions, discoveries and other additions included an increase of 1,605 Bcfe of proved undeveloped additions associated with acreage that was previously unproved but became proved due to 2025 reserve development that expanded the number of the Company's proven locations and additions to the Company's…
• AR (ANTERO RESOURCES CORPORATION)
• FY2025 10-K: …Corporation's consolidated financial statements. ​ 55 Table of Contents Exploration and Production Segment The following table sets forth selected operating data of the exploration and production segment: ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Year Ended ​ Amount of ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ December 31, ​ Increase ​ Percent ​ ​ ​ ​ ​…
• FY2025 10-K: …with ONE Future, well below the ONE Future voluntary industry target of 1%. 16 Table of Contents During 2025, our GHG/methane emission reduction efforts included the following activities : ● Continued our responsibly sourced gas certification effort that is Trustwell certified by Project Canary. ● Conducted four…
• RRC (RANGE RESOURCES CORPORATION)
• FY2025 10-K: Bcfe for previously undeveloped properties reclassified from non-proved properties due to their addition to our five-year development plan, positive performance revisions of 764.4 Bcfe due to improved well performance and longer lateral lengths and positive pricing revisions of 2.1 Bcfe partially offset b y 616.6 Bcfe…
• FY2025 10-K: …from non-proved properties due to their addition to our five-year development plan and positive performance revisions of 701.4 Bcfe due to improved well performance and longer lateral lengths partially offset by negative pricing revisions of 2.2 Bcfe and 370.6 Bcfe reclassified to unproved for previously planned…
• GPOR (Gulfport Energy Corporation)
• FY2025 10-K: …false 0000874499 2025 FY 0.16667 iso4217:USD xbrli:shares iso4217:USD xbrli:shares gpor:segment xbrli:pure iso4217:USD utr:MMcfe gpor:counterparty utr:MMBTU iso4217:USD utr:MMBTU utr:bbl iso4217:USD utr:bbl utr:acre iso4217:USD gpor:barrel utr:Bcfe gpor:well 0000874499 2025-01-01 2025-12-31 0000874499 2025-06-30…
• FY2025 10-K: …same facilities, the rule for which was finalized in November 2024. However, the methane emissions charge rule was repealed in February 2025 and the imposition of the charge under the IRA 2022 was postponed until 2034 under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of July 2025. In December 2025, the USEPA issued a final rule…
• EXE (EXPAND ENERGY CORPORATION)
• FY2025 10-K: …revisions were due to aligning production forecasts with latest production trends. We recorded extensions and discoveries of 52 Bcfe, primarily related to new PUDs in Southwest Appalachia. The natural gas, oil and NGL prices used in computing our reserves as of December 31, 2025, were $ 3.39 per Mcf, $ 65.34 per Bbl…
• FY2025 10-K: …The proposed rule sought to make the existing regulations in Subpart OOOOa more stringent and create a Subpart OOOOb to expand reduction requirements for new, modified, and reconstructed oil and gas sources, including standards focusing on certain source types that have never been regulated under the CAA (including…
• CTRA (COTERRA ENERGY INC.)
• FY2025 10-K: …assess budgeted versus actual results and drives the Company's operating cash flow. The CODM reviews significant consolidated forecasts and results of operations, including return on capital, operating expenses, and cash flow when making decisions such as the allocation of capital. The financial position, results of…
• FY2025 10-K: …from year-end 2024 proved reserves to 2,565 MMBoe. Proved natural gas reserves were 10.5 Tcf, proved oil reserves were 385 MMBbls, and proved NGL reserves were 428 MMBbls. The Company's reserves in the Marcellus Shale accounted for 49 percent of total proved reserves, the Permian Basin accounted for 41 percent, and…
• BKV (BKV CORPORATION)
• FY2025 10-K: 184,347 Natural gas liquids (MBbls) 183,504 Producing 163,078 Non-producing 20,426 Oil (MBbls) 1,760 Producing 1,597 Non-producing 163 Total estimated proved developed reserves (MMcfe) 4,268,371 Producing 3,960,490 Non-producing 307,881 Estimated proved undeveloped reserves at NYMEX Strip Pricing: Natural gas (MMcf)…
• FY2025 10-K: BKV dCarbon Project, LLC, entered into on May 8, 2025, by BKV dCarbon Ventures, C Squared Solutions, Inc. and, for the limited purposes specified therein, BKV Corporation. " BKV Upstream Midstream " refers to BKV Upstream Midstream, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of BKV Corporation. " BNAC " refers to Banpu North…
• OVV (Ovintiv Inc.)
• FY2025 10-K: …prescribed work practices and inspection schedules and facility‑level methane intensity thresholds. Amendments will come into force on January 1, 2028, and target methane reduction by 2040. The Government of British Columbia also has equivalency agreements in place with the Government of Canada, such that the current…
• FY2025 10-K: NGLs Natural Gas WTI ($/bbl) Edmonton Condensate (C$/bbl) Henry Hub ($/MMBtu) AECO (C$/MMBtu) Reserves Pricing (1) 2025 $ 65.34 $ 90.09 $ 3.39 $ 1.76 2024 75.48 99.60 2.13 1.26 2023 78.22 104.61 2.64 2.78 (1) All prices were held constant in all future years when estimating net revenues and reserves. 138 PROVED…

Methodology Note

• Priced-in inversion: the valuation is inverted on the current price to recover the operating-income growth, duration, and steady-state margin the price embeds (ROE for financials, FFO growth for REITs).
• Valuation x-ray: the valuation models, grouped into four families (asset, earnings, relative, growth). Each model is expressed as a price/FV ratio (distance from price), not a point fair-value estimate. The spread across families is the disagreement.
• Economic-unit decomposition (SOTP): each disclosed business unit is assigned its native valuation basis before any multiple is applied. Operating units are valued on enterprise value; funded financial units are valued on their own common equity, because their borrowings fund earning assets rather than levering the parent. A company total is stated only once every material unit carries a supported value and the parent capital bridge reconciles.
• Solvency: net cash/debt, net-debt-to-NOPAT, interest coverage, and share-count CAGR from EDGAR financials (net debt / FFO and fixed-charge coverage for REITs; regulatory-capital framing for financials).
• Peer cohorts: per-segment comparables with deep-linkable SEC filing citations.

Fundamentals sourced from SEC EDGAR filings. Current price from Databento. The priced-in inversion and valuation x-ray are computed by the boothcheck engine; narrative composed by AI from the structured data.