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Oil company proved reserves additions in 2017 were most since 2013 while expenditures were about half
In 2017, a group of the world’s largest publicly traded oil and natural gas producers added more hydrocarbons to their resource base than in any year since 2013, according to the annual reports of 83 exploration and production companies. Collectively, these companies added a net 8.2 billion barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) to their proved reserves during 2017, which totaled 277 billion BOE at the end of the year. Exploration and development (E&D) spending in 2017 increased 11% from 2016 levels, but remained 47% lower than 2013 levels.
Of the 83 companies, 18 held more than 80% of the 277 billion BOE in proved reserves at the end of 2017. While many of these companies have global operations, some are national oil companies with reserves concentrated in their home countries including Russia, China, and Brazil. Proved reserves change from year to year because of revisions to existing reserves, extensions and discoveries of new resources, purchases and sales of proved reserves, and production. Figure 1 illustrates the 83 companies’ combined proved reserves changes during 2017.
Organic additions to proved reserves, or reserves added through improved recovery and extensions and discoveries, are linked directly with capital expenditures in E&D. Proved reserves acquired through purchases do not represent E&D capital investment, but rather reflect transfers of assets between companies. Revisions to proved reserves are usually more significantly influenced by changes in crude oil and natural gas prices than by E&D investment.
Of the 17.7 billion BOE in organic proved reserves added in 2017, slightly less than half (8.5 billion BOE) were in the United States, while Russia, Central Asia, and the Asia-Pacific region accounted for 24% (4.3 billion BOE). Canada (which includes oil sands and synthetic crude oil), Latin America, and the Middle East and Africa regions each added more than 1.1 billion BOE. Regionally, Europe accounted for the fewest organically added proved reserves for the sixth consecutive year, adding 0.3 billion BOE of proved reserves in 2017, 2% of the world total (Figure 2).
Global E&D spending by region was similarly distributed. Of the $285 billion companies spent on E&D in 2017, 33% ($95 billion) was in the United States, with the Russia, Central Asia, and Asia-Pacific region accounting for 30% ($85 billion) and all other regions each accounting for 10% or less. Changes in nominal year-over-year E&D spending varied across regions, increasing by 36% in the United States and by 15% each in Canada and the Russia, Central Asia, and Asia-Pacific region. Spending declined by 24% in Europe, 16% in the Middle East and Africa, and 15% in Latin America (Figure 3). Because significant cost deflation has occurred in the oil and natural gas industry since 2014, nominal spending values in different years may not be directly comparable.
Because of a disparity between the timing of companies’ capital expenditures and the formal reporting of changes to their proved reserves, standard practice is to average the results over several years. Analyzed this way, E&D costs declined significantly on a per BOE basis from the 2012–2014 average to the 2015–2017 average (Figure 4). Three-year average E&D capital expenditures per BOE of organic proved reserves additions decreased in all regions except Latin America. On an annual basis, 2017 represented the lowest E&D capital expenditures per additional BOE to proved reserves during the 2012–2017 period at $16.12/BOE.
First quarter 2018 capital expenditures for this set of companies were 16% higher than the first quarter of 2017, suggesting that many of these companies have increased their E&D budgets, which will likely contribute to further organic proved reserves additions in 2018.
U.S. average regular gasoline and diesel prices decrease
The U.S. average regular gasoline retail price decreased 3 cents from last week to $2.88 per gallon on June 18, 2018, up 56 cents from the same time last year. Gulf Coast and East Coast prices each decreased over four cents to $2.65 per gallon and $2.80, respectively, Midwest prices decreased nearly three cents to $2.79 per gallon, West Coast prices decreased nearly two cents to $3.43 per gallon, and Rocky Mountain prices decreased over one penny to $2.98.
The U.S. average diesel fuel price decreased over 2 cents from last week to $3.24 per gallon on June 18, 2018, 76 cents higher than a year ago. Midwest prices declined nearly three cents to $3.17 per gallon, East Coast and Gulf Coast prices each declined over two cents to $3.24 per gallon and $3.02 per gallon, respectively, West Coast prices declined nearly two cents to $3.75 per gallon, and Rocky Mountain prices decreased less than one cent to $3.34 per gallon.
Propane/propylene inventories rise
U.S. propane/propylene stocks increased by 3.2 million barrels last week to 54.1 million barrels as of June 15, 2018, 9.5 million barrels (14.9%) lower than the five-year average inventory level for this same time of year. Midwest, Gulf Coast, East Coast, and Rocky Mountain/West Coast inventories increased by 1.2 million barrels, 1.1 million barrels, 0.7 million barrels, and 0.2 million barrels, respectively. Propylene non-fuel-use inventories represented 5.0% of total propane/propylene inventories.
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Now that Occidental Petroleum has beaten Chevron to the acquisition of Anadarko Petroleum – and the strategic assets it holds in the prolific Permian Basin – one would think that the deal is cut-and-dry. Not so. The fallout of the massive US$57 billion deal has begun, and it pits one legendary billionaire against another legendary billionaire.
The Occidental purchase of Anadarko had all the signs of a classic takeover battle, swooping in after Chevron and Anadarko’s boards had approved their own US$48 billion deal. It was made only possible by Oxy CEO Vicki Hollub making a quick private plane trip that resulted in a last-minute US$10 billion capital injection from Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway that was contingent on the Anadarko purchase working. It did. And with the US Federal Trade Commission approving the deal, Anadarko will become part of Occidental by the end of 2019.
But not everyone is happy about the situation. Some investors and shareholders of Occidental believe that it badly overpaid for Anadarko, and were rankled by the deal bypassing a shareholder vote on the matter. The chief critic of this is activist Carl Icahn, who owns a US$1.6 billion stake in Occidental, who slammed it as ‘misguided’ with the CEO and Board ‘betting the company to serve their own agendas’. Icahn has already filed a lawsuit demanding access to Occidental’s books and records, and has just take the fight to a new level.
Last week, Icahn filed regulatory paperwork to call for a special shareholder meeting where he hopes to oust four of Occidental directors and modify the company’s charter through stockholder consent from ever engineering a similar takeover. Icahn wants Spencer Abraham, Eugene Batchelder, Margaret Foran and Avedick Poladian out from the Board, holding them responsible for the ‘fiasco’. He has, of course, nominated his own preferred replacements, including one of his portfolio manager’s Nicholas Graziano, his general counsel Andrew Langham, former Jarden finance chief Alan LeFevre and former president of Shell John Hofmeister. While Icahn has publicly acknowledge that the Anadarko takeover will probably go ahead, his aim is for the new Board to oversee ‘future extraordinary transactions to ensure that they are not consummated without shareholder approval where approval.’
Will it work? Before the proxy fight can go ahead, Icahn must get at least 20% of shareholders to agree to a meeting. That’s a tall order, given that the current crop of directors and Boards were re-elected at the May annual meeting, although with lower support. But there is certainly some appetite, given that Occidental’s stock has dropped nearly 17% since the initial April hostile takeover, reflecting market mood that it had bitten off more than it could chew.
All of this is playing out against a backdrop of pessimism in the Permian. Although the shale revolution had brought American crude production to record highs and sent its crude exports to a new record of 3.3 mmb/d in June, there are now cracks showing. With limited infrastructure, low prices and over-exploitation, the Permian boom is slowing down. Once an investor’s darling, financing has now become far tougher for Permian players, as the high production fall off rate means that companies have to spend more and more money to just maintain production. It’s a situation that is particularly negative for the small, nimble players that powered the initial shale revolution who lack the deep pockets to optimise shale assets over a longer production period. All across the Permian, independent players have lost between 50-100% of their market value, making them ripe for acquisition by majors and supermajors. Deals like the Anadarko one make sense in this context, but with the financial risk increasing, these blockbuster deals may never lead to blockbuster returns. Carl Icahn may not be able win his battle for the Occidental board, but he is certainly making a serious – and very valid - point.
The Occidental-Anadarko deal:
According to the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Nigeria has the world’s 9th largest natural gas reserves (192 TCF of gas reserves). As at 2018, Nigeria exported over 1tcf of gas as Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) to several countries. However domestically, we produce less than 4,000MW of power for over 180million people.
Think about this – imagine every Nigerian holding a 20W light bulb, that’s how much power we generate in Nigeria. In comparison, South Africa generates 42,000MW of power for a population of 57 million. We have the capacity to produce over 2 million Metric Tonnes of fertilizer (primarily urea) per year but we still import fertilizer. The Federal Government’s initiative to rejuvenate the agriculture sector is definitely the right thing to do for our economy, but fertilizer must be readily available to support the industry. Why do we import fertilizer when we have so much gas?
I could go on and on with these statistics, but you can see where I’m going with this so I won’t belabor the point. I will leave you with this mental image: imagine a man that lives with his family on the banks of a river that has fresh, clean water. Rather than collect and use this water directly from the river, he treks over 20km each day to buy bottled water from a company that collects the same water, bottles it and sells to him at a profit. This is the tragedy on Nigeria and it should make us all very sad.
Several indigenous companies like Nestoil were born and grown by the opportunities created by the local and international oil majors – NNPC and its subsidiaries – NGC, NAPIMS, Shell, Mobil, Agip, NDPHC. Nestoil’s main focus is the Engineering Procurement Construction and Commissioning of oil and gas pipelines and flowstations, essentially, infrastructure that supports upstream companies to produce and transport oil and natural gas, as well as and downstream companies to store and move their product. In our 28 years of doing business, we have built over 300km of pipelines of various sizes through the harshest terrain, ranging from dry land to seasonal swamp, to pure swamps, as well as some of the toughest and most volatile and hostile communities in Nigeria. I would be remiss if I do not use this opportunity to say a big thank you to those companies that gave us the opportunity to serve you. The over 2,000 direct staff and over 50,000 indirect staff we employ thank you. We are very grateful for the past opportunities given to us, and look forward to future opportunities that we can get.
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Headline crude prices for the week beginning 15 July 2019 – Brent: US$66/b; WTI: US$59/b
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