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Halliburton Fires One Third Of Global Staff: “What We Are Experiencing Today Is Far Beyond Headwinds”
In a brutally frank and painfully honest first quarter operational update, Halliburton president Jeff Miller poured freezing cold water all over the “oil is stabilizing, and everything is going to be awesome” narrative. After explaining that the firm has laid off one-third of its global employees, and pointing to the collapse in sequential revenues across every business unit, Miller exclaimed: “What we are experiencing today is far beyond headwinds; it is unsustainable.” Due to the deadline of its merger agreement with Baker Hughes Halliburtion has delayed its earnings conference call until May 3rd and so gave an operational update. The healdlines were horrific: *HAL SEES OVER 30% DROP IN YR GLOBAL DRILLING, COMPLETION SPEND *HALLIBURTON CUT ABOUT 1/3 OF STAFF GLOBALLY *HALLIBURTON CUT OVER 6,000 JOBS DURING 1Q *HALLIBURTON SEES ADDITIONAL 50% DECLINE IN NORTH AMERICA SPEND ’16 *HALLIBURTON SAYS WORLDWIDE RIG COUNT LOWEST LEVEL SINCE 1999 *HALLIBURTON SEES […]
Offshore rig operators reel from oil price rout
In the depths of the ocean off the coast of Uruguay, more than two miles below sea level, the oil industry is continuing to push back the frontier. Last month a drillship operated by AP Møller-Maersk of Denmark began the Raya 1 well in 3,411 metres of water, breaking the record for sea depth previously set in 2013. Drilling in such extreme conditions is a remarkable feat, but wells such as Raya 1 are becoming increasingly rare. Technology makes them possible, but economics militates against them. For the companies that operate offshore rigs on behalf of oil producers — including Transocean, Seadrill, Ensco and Noble Corp — the slump in crude prices since the summer of 2014 has been brutal. They have been reporting large losses, and have cut or scrapped their dividends. Their share prices have plunged.
The impact of low oil prices is often depicted as a battle between Saudi Arabia and the onshore shale producers of the US. But other relatively high-cost sources of supply around the world have also been hit, and for offshore oil the effect is likely to last longer. The latest data for offshore oil and gas production still look healthy. Last year output from the UK sector of the North Sea rose 7 to 8 per cent, while crude production in the US waters of the Gulf of Mexico rose 10 per cent.
IMF expects $500B revenue loss for Mideast oil exporters
Oil exporting countries in the Middle East lost a staggering $390 billion in revenue due to lower oil prices last year, and should brace for even deeper losses of more than $500 billion this year, the International Monetary Fund said Monday. The fund had projected in October that oil exporting countries in the region would see revenue losses of $360 billion in 2015, but oil prices took a tumble by year’s end and the drop in revenue amounted to $30 billion more. In a revised economic outlook report released Monday, the IMF said these countries will see revenues from oil exports drop even more in 2016, to between $490 billion to $540 billion compared to 2014, when oil prices were higher. Oil prices plunged to around $30 a barrel in January compared to $115 in mid-2014. IMF Director for Middle […]
Middle East Economies Facing Oil Revenue Falls, IMF Says
The International Monetary Fund estimates the Middle East’s oil-dependent economies have missed out on $390 billion in oil revenues last year alone and face up to $150 billion in income losses this year as a result of cheap oil prices. The drop in revenues stemming from the export of oil is the direct result of the plunge in crude prices from around $115 a barrel in the middle of 2014 to below $30 at the start of the year and now above $40, the IMF said. The loss in potential revenues has put an enormous strain on the economies of major oil exporters such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait who have posted massive budget deficits in the past year. The IMF had previously calculated that the declining energy prices would erase around $360 billion […]
Tesla’s Elon Musk simplifies how dumb our oil dependency is
Both recyclable Now compare how much gasoline is needed for an average car: say 15000 miles / year, 25 mpg, that’s about 600 gallons, or about 3600 pounds of gas per year, which in turn generates about 11000 pounds of CO2 per year. That’s well over twice the weight of the posited automobile, and we’re back to Musk’s original point about burning fossil fuels. [new] Please explain how burning 3600 lbs of fuel What never gets mentioned in this discussion is that once we burn up all the petroleum for fuel, what are we going to use for lubricants? Even electric cars (as well as every other machine on the face of the Earth) need lubrication, and petroleum-based ones are far and away the best, most cost-effective, and long-lasting. Burning it as fuel is stupid and wasteful on this point alone, not to mention all […]
