As a miserable year for the oil industry draws to a close, any relief executives might feel will be tempered by the knowledge that 2016 is shaping up to be even worse.
The collapse in oil and gas prices that began in the summer of last year has already cost hundreds of thousands of jobs, and caused projects worth hundreds of billions of dollars to be cancelled or delayed. Today, the external environment is more challenging than it was a year ago, and the energy companies’ ability to cope with tough conditions is diminished.
For oil and gas producers, 2016 will be a year of cost-cutting, restructuring, refinancing when it is possible, and in some cases bankruptcy when it is not. Merger and acquisition activity, which was sluggish this year because of disagreements over valuations, may pick up speed.