Oil Market Blood Bath Has A Long Way To Go
By Dan Dicker - Jan 30, 2015, 4:44 PM CST
Another Wednesday, another big build in domestic crude stocks, sending oil prices swooning again. Prices retreated another 3% to under $45 a barrel. Two majors, Hess and Royal Dutch Shell, reported some pretty bad numbers, proving that it’s not only the small independents that are in deep trouble here. The majors are hardly immune.
Royal Dutch is cutting $15b of capex over the next 3 years and freezing dividends, following Conoco-Phillips (COP), first to the capex machete, dropping $2b off their spend in 2015 alone.
And don’t get me started on Hess. Here’s one where the Paul Singer magic hasn’t worked out. The hedge fund genius is an activist holder in the old Jersey based company and had a hand in pushing for the many divestitures that Hess has made over the last two years, including the entirety of their refining and gas stations and Hetco trading company. Those cuts, in order to concentrate on oil production and particularly Bakken oil production, are starting to make diversification look like a whole lot better oil strategy than it did a year ago. Defiantly, Hess has ramped up production in the 4th quarter anyway and is planning on making some serious stock buybacks. Clearly, the company is betting on a very quick rebound in oil prices.
There is a group hallucination going on, as it seems that everyone else is banking on one too – or praying for it.
With the increasing stockpiles as proof, slashing spends and cratering…
Another Wednesday, another big build in domestic crude stocks, sending oil prices swooning again. Prices retreated another 3% to under $45 a barrel. Two majors, Hess and Royal Dutch Shell, reported some pretty bad numbers, proving that it’s not only the small independents that are in deep trouble here. The majors are hardly immune.
Royal Dutch is cutting $15b of capex over the next 3 years and freezing dividends, following Conoco-Phillips (COP), first to the capex machete, dropping $2b off their spend in 2015 alone.
And don’t get me started on Hess. Here’s one where the Paul Singer magic hasn’t worked out. The hedge fund genius is an activist holder in the old Jersey based company and had a hand in pushing for the many divestitures that Hess has made over the last two years, including the entirety of their refining and gas stations and Hetco trading company. Those cuts, in order to concentrate on oil production and particularly Bakken oil production, are starting to make diversification look like a whole lot better oil strategy than it did a year ago. Defiantly, Hess has ramped up production in the 4th quarter anyway and is planning on making some serious stock buybacks. Clearly, the company is betting on a very quick rebound in oil prices.
There is a group hallucination going on, as it seems that everyone else is banking on one too – or praying for it.
With the increasing stockpiles as proof, slashing spends and cratering prices are doing nothing – yet – for production figures. Hell, even the Iraqis are now over 3.5m barrels a day, competing for a bigger percentage of the OPEC market share. We’re going to have to see production numbers drop – a LOT – before this oil market even thinks about turning around. As we’re still churning along on production contracted in 2014 and earlier when prices were blithely ‘stabilized’ at $100 a barrel, that’s not happening anytime soon.
I’m convinced that the market is going to have to beat the hallucination out of this group. And it will.
That means – yes – bankruptcies and defaults. That means restructurings and dividend cuts. And it means that anybody early into this party, expecting to catch the bottom of this market before a lot more blood is spilled is going to get garroted themselves.
You’ll need to see all of that before this oil market begins to attract buyers again. We’ve barely seen any of it so far, save for a couple of minor refinancing deals by Linn energy (LINE) and Southwestern (SWN).
That’s just a preview. Since the start of this mess, all I’ve said is that an oil rally will be impossible to sustain. I’ve refrained from calling a bottom – there is no upside in trying. But wherever oil trades down to, whether that’s here or $40 or even lower, what you won’t see is a quick turnaround – Until you see more blood. Brace.