Clearing Up Some Confusing Headlines About The U.S. Oil And Gas Industry
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidblackmon/2017/12/18/clearing-up-some-confusing-headlines-about-the-u-s-oil-and-gas-industry/#51331ebb5523DEC 18, 2017
In the oil and gas industry, sometimes it is hard to figure out what is real and what isn't - what is really happening, and what really isn't happening. I spent 38 years in the industry, and still have a hard time figuring it all out. Here are some good recent examples of stories whose headlines made bold claims that, upon reading the entire stories, turned out to be quite nuanced:...
Are Investors Abandoning The U.S. Shale Industry?
...A look at recent presentations by the CEOs at corporate shale producers, like this one from Encana's Doug Suttles, shows a focus on responding to demands by investors that these companies dedicate more of their resources towards actions that will increase returns on investment capital, a pressure I wrote about in early November. One result of this investor pressure has been the announcement of a wave of stock buy-back programs since August. Investors are also pressuring companies to change executive compensation programs that have been, in their view, too focused on increasing production at the cost of profits.
As the Wall Street Journal pointed out on December 13, 70 percent of U.S. shale is produced by just 30 companies. Thus, if most of these companies can be convinced to allocate resources to initiatives to raise investor returns, this problem will become largely resolved.
Did The World Bank Cut Off Funding of Oil and Gas Projects?...
...It is entirely possible that this announcement, which was made at the One Planet Summit in Paris, could in fact end up producing no real policy change at all. But it sure got a nice round of applause in Paris.
Has the business case for building the Keystone XL pipeline passed?
no....
