Despite a volatile year marred by the Covid-19 pandemic, CNX Resources Corp. said it finished strong, delivering on a more cautious approach implemented early in 2020 when the virus spread across the world and weighed on energy demand. 

Appalachian natural gas price

“2020 marked the most successful year we’ve seen as an” exploration and production company, “and frankly, as a public company going back to the late 1990s as measured by free cash flow (FCF),” said CEO Nick Deluliis.

As the pandemic spread rapidly prompting widespread lockdowns that jolted commodity markets, CNX laid out a more cautious approach as part of a broader seven-year plan that also called for generating $3 billion in FCF. The company generated $85 million of FCF in the fourth quarter and a record $356 million for the...