Chevron price target lowered to $162 from $173 at Piper Sandler

Piper Sandler lowered the firm’s price target on Chevron (CVX) to $162 from $173 and keeps an Overweight rating on the shares. Exiting Q1 results, PSC’s commodity team has reduced its 2025/2026 commodity price outlook, while raising mid-cycle natural gas to $3.50/mmbtu vs. $3.25 prior, the firm notes. While Piper expects the combination of balance sheet, visible growth and resource depth will allow the IOCs to maintain an advantaged level of momentum through the potential weakness, and refining tailwinds offer a slight offset, the firm believes investors will increasingly focus on the risks to the current pace of shareholder distributions for the group, where it sees CFO for the group only able to cover 25%/59% of the current buyback pace on average at $55/$65/bbl Brent.