Industry Trends ///
As the working rig count reaches historic lows, World Oil editors take a look at what it means for future production and inevitable consolidations to follow. Can technical innovation lead the industry out of the wilderness?
Exxon Mobil incurred an unprecedented second straight quarterly loss as almost every facet of the oil giant’s business slumped amid Covid-19 lockdowns that stunted economic activity.
The African Energy Chamber said the continuation of travel restrictions and suspension of visas and travel between Africa and Europe is heavily restraining the oil & gas industry’s recovery efforts.
OPEC slashed oil production to the lowest level since the Gulf War in 1991, as it escalated efforts to revive global markets just as a resurgence of the coronavirus is threatening demand again.
Demand growth for refined oil products will never return to the levels it reached before the coronavirus outbreak, Citigroup said.
From OPEC stalwarts down to individual producing companies, oil price and demand projections are dividing into two separate camps. World Oil's editors review some of these key differences, and what they mean for crude production plans.
The market’s climb from negative territory in April has been swift but bumpy, with the U.S. benchmark struggling to hold above $40 a barrel amid a stubborn supply glut and a resurgence of Covid-19 cases that’s darkened the demand outlook.
Royal Dutch Shell said it will write down between $15 billion and $22 billion in the second quarter, as the company gave investors a wider glimpse of just how severely the coronavirus crisis has hit Big Oil.
India, the third-biggest oil consumer, expects fuel demand to return to normal earlier than projections by the International Energy Agency and OPEC.
The more than 500-page plan, from the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis convened by Pelosi and chaired by Representative Kathy Castor of Florida, seeks to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 and calls for achieving 100% clean vehicles by 2035, according to people familiar with the details.
More than 200 North American oil and gas producers, owing over $130 billion in debt, have filed for bankruptcy since the beginning of 2015, according to a May report from law firm Haynes & Boone. This year alone, at least 20 have gone under after oil prices plunged amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
Chesapeake Energy Corporation announced that the company has voluntarily filed for Chapter 11 protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas to facilitate a comprehensive balance sheet restructuring.
A second wave of Covid-19 infections in China’s capital is threatening to depress the nation’s appetite for American oil just after a pick-up in purchases.
World Oil editors review the Dallas Fed's recent oil production survey among U.S. operators and service companies, and discover a "split personality" between production estimate and pricing models that could lead to an oil supply shock in 2021.
A recent survey by the Dallas office of the Federal Reserve System reveals a very somber and wary mindset by U.S. producers toward the upstream oil and gas (O&G) market. And that attitude is reflected in their plans for coping with the Covid-19-affected O&G market.
Exxon Mobil is preparing to cut jobs in the U.S. as the oil giant focuses on a slimmed-down and more efficient organizational structure, according to people familiar with the matter.
Occidental has been under pressure ever since outbidding Chevron to win the purchase of Anadarko Petroleum last year. The deal saddled Oxy with some $40 billion of debt that was looking hard to pay off even before Covid-19 reduced global oil demand.
OGUK recently set out industry commitments to halve operational emissions in the next decade, with a target of 90 percent reductions by 2040. The sector was one of the first to respond to the Committee on Climate Change report in May last year which called for governments to reach net zero emissions by 2050 in the UK and 2045 in Scotland, with its Roadmap 2035: a blueprint for net zero.
According to EIA research, increases in drilling efficiency pushed U.S. crude oil and natural gas production to establish new records of 12.2 MMbpd and 111.5 Bcfd, respectively, in 2019.
Looking out 18 months, U.S. output will still be around 16% below its peak in February, according to an average of surveys from the IEA, Genscape, Enervus, Rystad and IHS Markit. It will probably be at least 2023 before the U.S. again hits its record close to 13 million barrels a day.