Slowdown hits oil giants: BP and Exxon report record losses - from TRUNEWS

(TRUNEWS) In their fourth-quarter profit reports Tuesday, British Petroleum (BP) and Exxon Mobil Corp reported record losses.

In BP’s definition of net income, their underlying replacement cost profits, the company reported earnings of $196 million from their fourth-quarter, well below expectations of $730 million. BP also said it lost $6.5 billion in 2015, its biggest annual loss ever, and will cut 7,000 jobs by the end of 2017 to stay afloat.

Exxon Mobil, the world’s largest publicly traded oil company, reported their net profits at $2.78 billion / 67 cents per share, down significantly from last years fourth-quarter earnings of $6.57 billion / $1.56 per share. In response Exxon has said it will cut 2016 spending by 25 percent and suspend share repurchases, a strategy used by many companies to reinvest earnings to bolster share value.

Chevron Corp reported similar losses Friday, posting a fourth-quarter net loss of $588 million / 31 cents per share, compared with last years net profit of $3.47 billion / $1.85 per share.

Smaller rivals Hess Corp, Continental Resources and Noble Energy cut their own budgets earlier last week, ranging from 40 percent to 66 percent.

The turmoil western oil companies are now experiencing was first felt by Saudi Arabia, who announced an IPO of their state owned oil company, Saudi Aramco, in response to struggling profitiability and economic mismanagement.

Saudi Aramco – REUTERS/ Ali Jarekji 

In a January interview with Rick Wiles, Jim Willie leaked this revelation, as well what ultimately predicated the turmoil, their intentional depression of global oil index’s through the flooding of the international markets with their crude, as well as the dying petrodollar alliance.

In January, Jim Willie told Rick Wiles that companies would begin to go bankrupt under current market conditions, and this year would see the end of the petrodollar monopoly, the alliance between Saudi Arabia and the United States to denominate oil commodity sales in U.S. dollars.

Crude oil prices globally have dropped around 70 percent from 2014 highs of over $100 barrel. Current prices around $30 barrel have triggered a wave of spending cuts as oil companies slash investment in new wells and projects to conserve cash.

Based off the latest wave of negative quarterly revenue announcements, Oil markets have continued to depress, with the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) index hovering at $30.43, and the Brent Crude Index sitting at $33.07 according to Bloomberg (12:41).

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