Boom times

If you thought coronavirus had hobbled the oil industry for good, think again. Just a year after a Saudi-Russian price war and the coronavirus pandemic triggered the worst oil crash in decades, a stunning reversal is under way. It calls to mind the bumper sticker said to adorn half-tons from Texas to Alberta: “Please God, give me one more oil boom, I promise not to piss it all away next time.” The moment when that pledge is tested suddenly seems closer than anyone expected six months ago. Crude prices, demand, sector equities, and the mood in the oil patch are all rising. The good news might be too late if you are one of the tens of thousands of people retrenched as oil companies prepared for what many executives feared could be a multiyear downturn. Drawing on the experience of countless booms and busts, the fossil fuel sector took the crisis as a prompt to cut back costs. That has left oil operators, especially in the US, emerging leaner and meaner — just as a wave of cash heads their way. “The next five years may be the best five years we’ve ever had for hydrocarbon investing,” Wil VanLoh, […]

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