NEW YORK/DENVER - Oil prices have plunged so much that even U.S. shale producers who have paid for the industry’s version of income insurance must deal with big holes in their budgets.
With prices at three-year lows, shale producers also are exposed because they used options in such a way that their insurance erodes the more oil declines. But that 43% is not fully covered. Producers use a variety of methods to hedge production. The simplest is to purchase a put option that allows the holder to sell at a fixed price at a particular time, regardless of where oil prices are trading. That locks in a selling price of, say, $50 a barrel.
“Using many of these structures, producers are price-protected unless prices fall below a certain threshold, and $45 a barrel was a popular strike level, at which point producers become fully exposed,” Tran said. Occidental Petroleum Corp constructed a complicated hedge that protected their selling price for 2020 down to $45 per barrel of Brent while leaving them fully exposed to downside in 2021, according to company filings. That company cut its dividend by 86% this week and said it would slash spending.
However, it costs much more for oil and gas producers to hedge now than it did five years ago, and they must do it at a lower absolute price, said Basil Karampelas, managing director at advisory firm SierraConstellation Partners.Some firms were not hedged at all, including Apache Corp and Continental Resources Inc, according to the latest annual filings.
Long may oil prices crash
Don't go fracking 😁
Good. Maybe they'll learn something
🤣
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