EIA: Oil and gas companies reduce debt for seven consecutive quarters

Oil and gas companies have cut their debt positions as a group for seven consecutive quarters, according to the latest analysis from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

This analysis was part of EIA’s Financial Review of the Global Oil and Natural Gas Industry for Q2 2018, a report built using financial and operating data supplied by Evaluate Energy.

At greater than 20 per cent, Q2 2018 actually saw the largest overall reduction in debt for the EIA’s group of companies in the study period. Four quarters of the past seven have seen general debt reductions by the combined group of over 10 per cent.

This change in general usage of cash and move towards debt repayments has meant the energy companies, as a group, have been relatively less inclined towards capital spending.

While Q2 2018 did see a two per cent increase in capital spending compared to the same period last year according to the EIA analysis, the report also shows that operating cash flows (on an annualized basis) have increasingly outstripped capital spending levels since the end of 2016.

The full report, along with the list of companies that were used to create the analysis above, is available to download from the EIA at this link.

Click here for a demonstration of the Evaluate Energy database that was used by the EIA to create the report.