Free Republic

Want to invest in the oil majors? Take a look at Chevron and Royal Dutch Shell, but steer clear of ExxonMobil, BP, and Total. That is the conclusion from a new analysis from Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co., which identified Chevron and Shell as the best of the lot. The reason for choosing Chevron, for instance, is that the American oil major will have high-margin growth, largely due to the completion of several large-scale projects. The Gorgon LNG project is one example – with huge capex requirements behind it, Chevron will enjoy free-cash-flow turnaround. Tudor Pickering Holt also likes Chevron’s...

ExxonMobil and British Petroleum have been facing off over the terms of the renewal of the “contract of the century” in Azerbaijan, according to sources that spoke to Reuters. BP currently operates the Azeri-Chigar-Guneshi fields in the middle of the Caspian Sea—a region that contributes a tenth of the firm’s global output. The British company has reportedly agreed with the Azeri government on the terms of a 30-year contract, but in an effort to expand its presence in the ACG region, Exxon has been pushing for a piece of the $100 billion pie.

Are you tempted by nice dividends such as BP’s 7.53 percent and Shell’s 7.31 percent? Long-term investors are. They’re lapping up the oil majors on dips to cash in on their impressive dividend yields in hopes that the massive rally in crude oil from the lows of $27.10 per barrel is an indication that crude has bottomed out and higher prices are around the corner. The large investors are pursuing the oil majors for their stability and safety, which has boosted their prices, but even after the rise, prices remain below their 2015 highs. The oil majors are expected to...

Supermajors Shell and Italian Eni could be facing the loss of one of the biggest offshore oil exploration blocks in Nigeria, putting an estimated 9 billion barrels of crude oil at risk. As the new Nigerian government launches a rampaging anticorruption campaign, local media are reporting government recommendations to reclaim block OPL 245 from oil giants Shell and Eni. Nigerian Justice Minister and Attorney General Abubakar Malami is behind the recommendation, and is a key figure advising the government on the case. At issue is how Shell and Eni landed the block in the first place—a controversial deal that is...

A growing number of energy companies could come under increased scrutiny over their involvement in funding science and public relations campaigns denying the risks of climate change. The New York attorney general made news a few weeks ago when he announced an investigation into oil major ExxonMobil for its alleged cover up of climate science. The investigation is looking into the possibility that ExxonMobil funded and gathered hard science on climate change, and once coming to the inevitable conclusion that the burning of fossil fuels could lead to regulatory blowback, the oil major proceeded to bury the conclusions and instead...

sub•si•dy: (s?b′s?-d?) n. pl. sub•si•dies 1. Monetary assistance granted by a government to a person or group in support of an enterprise regarded as being in the public interest. 2. Financial assistance given by one person or government to another. The oil and gas industry is suffering through a severe and prolonged slump due to collapsed oil prices resulting in the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs worldwide and the destruction of billions, if not trillions, of dollars in shareholder value. Governments in oil-producing jurisdictions, including Alberta, find themselves in severe financial difficulty because cash flow generated by first...

One casualty of the oil price downturn could be the megaproject. For years, as conventional oil reserves depleted and became increasingly hard to find, oil companies ventured into far-flung locales to find new sources of production. Extracting oil from these frontier areas required more advanced technology and a lot more capital: Ultra deepwater, Arctic offshore, heavy oil sands, and increasingly, the Lower Tertiary. Often these megaprojects projects were only the purview of the largest oil companies, as smaller players did not have the resources – financial or technological – to make them work. Meanwhile, smaller drillers, at least in North...

Get ready for some bad news and red ink. With the bulk of quarterly earnings reports in the energy industry yet to be announced, there are already $6.5 billion worth of asset write-downs, according to Bloomberg. And that could be just the tip of the iceberg. A Barclays’ assessment last week predicted $20 billion in impairment charges from just six companies. Write-downs occur when the expected future cash flow from an asset falls sufficiently that a company has to report that the asset has lost some of its value. With oil prices half of what they were from mid-2014, oil...

A new report finds that the largest oil companies are set to cut spending on exploration by at least half, potentially leading to very few new oil discoveries in the years ahead. The report from investment bank Tudor, Pickering, Hold & Co., and reported by Fuel Fix, estimates that exploration budgets among the oil majors will drop to $25 billion in 2016, down from $50 billion from just a few years ago. Obviously, low oil prices are taking their toll, forcing deep spending cuts in a desperate attempt to shore up profitability. But the cuts have large implications for the...