Standard & Poor’s Notes Heightened Default Risks

Not all is well in Big Oil, or at least, not all is what it once was. The upstream oil and gas arena continues to face significant pressure from falling energy resource pricing, runaway capital spending projections and conditions that may not subside anytime soon. At the heart of the problem is OPEC’s strategy to maintain market share, apparently at all costs, which is different than the cartel’s efforts in previous cycles to support the price. Though upstream industry constituents have announced capital spending reductions and some have idled rigs, commercial inventories of crude oil remain at decade highs, and risks to the global economy, not the least of which from China (FXI), Brazil (EWZ), and Australia (EWA), threaten the … Read more