- The world's oil companies have canceled or delayed final investment decisions on ~150 projects that could wipe out 19M bbl/day from the world’s hydrocarbons and stay underground for several years longer than expected amid lower crude oil prices, according to a new report from Tudor Pickering Holt.
- Canada and Norway top the investment bank’s list of deferred projects by country, while surprisingly few deepwater projects have been deferred in the Gulf of Mexico and Brazil.
- The biggest oil companies account for a third of the 150 projects Tudor Pickering says have been delayed or canceled, a scale that “suggests that companies will have real growth issues toward the end of the decade,” and some will have to buy smaller rivals to make up for it.
- BP and Chevron (NYSE:CVX) have deferred the largest number of projects, while Exxon (NYSE:XOM) could delay the most oil barrels (~2.5M bbl/day of production capacity from 25 projects); Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A, RDS.B) is deferring 1.7M bbl/day, but its deal to buy BG Group and its deepwater fields off Brazil has alleviated many of the growth issues it might otherwise face.
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