{"id":39891,"date":"2018-10-30T07:11:46","date_gmt":"2018-10-30T12:11:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=39891"},"modified":"2018-10-30T07:11:46","modified_gmt":"2018-10-30T12:11:46","slug":"big-oil-wont-spend-despite-fat-profits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=39891","title":{"rendered":"Big Oil Won\u2019t Spend Despite Fat Profits"},"content":{"rendered":"

Big Oil Won\u2019t Spend Despite Fat Profits<\/a><\/h3>\n
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Higher oil prices are expected to leave the oil industry flush with cash, but the \u201ccapital discipline\u201d mantra remains. Market watchers have wondered whether top oil executives would eschew with tight-fisted spending plans once their pockets fattened up again.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re laser focused on disciplined free cash flow generation and strong execution. Discipline means, we’re not chasing higher prices by ramping up activity,\u201d ConocoPhillips\u2019 CEO Ryan Lance told investors on an earnings call<\/a>. \u201cBy staying disciplined, we generate strong free cash flow, which we then allocate in a shareholder-friendly way.\u201d He went on to stress how committed the company was to boosting the quarterly dividend and share buyback program.<\/p>\n

Conoco beat analysts\u2019 estimates, earning<\/a> $1.36 per share in the third quarter, eight times the earnings from the $0.16 per share a year earlier. Conoco also saw soaring production in the big three shale areas \u2013 the Permian, Eagle Ford and Bakken \u2013 with output up 48 percent to 313,000 bpd. Lance said that the company still wants to \u201coptimize\u201d its portfolio, which includes $600 million in asset sales.<\/p>\n

Conoco\u2019s experience highlights an important industry trend, which is prioritizing profits over growth and size. Lance pointed out that the last time earnings were this good was back in 2014. \u201cBrent was over $100 per barrel and our production was almost 1.5 million barrels of equivalent oil per day. So we’re as profitable today as we were then, despite prices being 25% lower and volumes being 20% lower,\u201d Lance told investors. \u201cSo bigger isn’t always better. That’s why we’re focused on per share growth and value, not absolute volume growth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Norwegian oil company Equinor (formerly Statoil) echoed that sentiment.<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Big Oil Won\u2019t Spend Despite Fat Profits Higher oil prices are expected to leave the oil industry flush with cash, but the \u201ccapital discipline\u201d mantra remains. Market watchers have wondered whether top oil executives would eschew with tight-fisted spending plans once their pockets fattened up again. \u201cWe’re laser focused on disciplined free cash flow generation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2688,1892,22637,6010,1278,5332,723],"class_list":["post-39891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","tag-big-oil","tag-conocophillips","tag-free-cash-flow","tag-nick-cunningham","tag-oil-industry","tag-oilprice-com","tag-shale-oil"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39891"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39891\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39892,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39891\/revisions\/39892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}