Here are the latest oil production numbers from the EIA. All data is in thousand barrels per day unless otherwise noted.
The USA through May 2018. The upward surge has stalled for the last two months. US production was down 30,000 bpd in May.
It is a little astonishing how close the Texas chart resembles the USA chart. Texas is, by far, the USA’s largest producer. As Texas goes, so goes the USA. Texas production was up 20,000 bpd in May.
This post does not necessarily reflect the views of Dennis Coyne or Ron Patterson.
The carnage continues in the U.S. major oil industry as they sink further and further in the RED. The top three U.S. oil companies, whose profits were once the envy of the energy sector, are now forced to borrow money to pay dividends or capital expenditures. The financial situation at ExxonMobil, Chevron and ConocoPhillips has become so dreadful, their total long-term debt surged 25% in just the past year.
Unfortunately, the majority of financial analysts at CNBC, Bloomberg or Fox Business have no clue just how bad the situation will become for the United States as its energy sector continues to disintegrate. While the Federal Government could step in and bail out BIG OIL with printed money, they cannot print barrels of oil.
Watch closely as the Thermodynamic Oil Collapse will start to pick up speed over the next five years.
According to the most recently released financial reports, the top three U.S. oil companies combined net income was the worst ever. The results can be seen in the chart below:
The era of the mighty U.S. major oil industry is coming to an end as the country’s largest petroleum company is in big trouble. While ExxonMobil has been the most profitable U.S. oil company in the past, it suffered its worst year on record.
For example, just four years ago, ExxonMobil enjoyed a $45 billion net income profit in 2012. Now compare that to a total $5 billion net income gain for the first three-quarters of 2016. If Exxon continues to report disappointing results for the remainder of the year, its net income will have declined a stunning 85% since 2012.
Actually, the situation at Exxon is much worse if we dig a little deeper.
To understand the real profitability of a company we have to look at its cash flow, or what is known as free cash flow. Free cash flow is calculated by deducting capital expenditures (CAPEX) from the company’s cash from operations. ExxonMobil’s free cash flow declined from $24.4 billion in 2011 to $1 billion for the first nine months of 2016:
So, here we can see that Exxon’s free cash flow of $1 billion (2016 YTD) is down 95% from $24.4 billion in 2011. The reason for the rapidly falling free cash flow is due to skyrocketing capital expenditures and falling oil prices. But, this is only part of the picture.