Now the WSJ gets to take a victory lap of sorts as shale bankruptcies are increasing:
Twenty-six U.S. oil-and-gas producers including Sanchez Energy Corp. and Halcón Resources Corp. have filed for bankruptcy this year, according to an August report by the law firm Haynes & Boone LLP. That nearly matches the 28 producer bankruptcies in all of 2018, and the number is expected to rise as companies face mounting debt maturities.
Private companies and smaller public drillers have been hit hardest so far. Those producers collectively generate a large portion of U.S. oil, according to consulting firm RS Energy Group, and their distress reflects issues affecting all U.S. shale.
As of July, about $9 billion was set to mature throughout the remainder of 2019, but about $137 billion will be due between 2020 and 2022, according to S&P . . . “A lot of companies are highly levered and facing maturities on their debt that I like to call a murderer’s row, maturities are coming year after year,” said Paul Harvey, credit analyst at S&P.
What I find interesting is that those who produce the largest portion of U.S. oil are the ones facing financial difficulties. Also, unless oil prices spike in the next 2 years, we're going to see a lot more bankruptcies.
These financial difficulties probably explain this Reuters quote:
North American spending growth on oil and gas production will slow to a 2% this year, according to a Barclays survey released this week, down from a January estimate of a 9% gain. Analysts for the bank expect spending in the second half of the year to be 15% below the first half.
If the trends hold, it would appear the spending growth will turn negative in 2020.
Of course, financial distress means that those in better financial conditions will be tempted to buy these corporations out. Via Bloomberg:
“It’s clear there are many E&Ps trading well below the Chevron valuation watermark from April,” said Michael Roomberg, who helps manage $4.4 billion at Miller/Howard Investments Inc. He expects “several additional deals over the next several quarters, and wouldn’t be surprised if the majors are involved.”
The collapse in valuations has been so severe that the biggest shale producers may also come into play. EOG Resources Inc. and Occidental Petroleum Corp. could also be targeted, Ben Cook, a portfolio manager at BP Capital in Dallas, said earlier this year. Activist investor Carl Icahn is pushing for a shakeup of the board at Occidental.
What is interesting about this quote is that Occidental won a bidding war with Chevron over Anadarko. Around April, when the Occidental/Anadarko deal was being negotiated, Occidental was trading around the high $60s. It is currently trading in the mid $40s. I wonder if Chevron would consider buying out Occidental at some point, giving it both Anadarko and Occidental.
When the oil majors do start buying up these distressed shale producers, I suspect that will end the constant over-production of shale oil. Chevron, Exxon-Mobil, BP, Shell and other oil majors all pay dividends. They can't run their shale oil in a cash deficit situation.
For some over-all data points:
Weekly US oil rig counts are in decline. After reaching a cycle high of 885 at the end of 2018, the latest rig count is now 738. Meanwhile, oil production in the US hit a high of 8,768 mb/d in September. Back in December 2018, we were 7,944 mb/d. So production has increased by 824 mb/d since the start of the year. This increase in production can't be driven by weekly rig counts as the rig counts are dropping. What appears to be causing this increase in production is a drop in DUC (Drilled Uncompleted). DUC wells have dropped from 8,798 in January for the various shale plays down to a current 8,108. If the trend of lower rig counts off-set by a drop in DUC wells continues, one would have to assume that at some point oil production will begin to decline.
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