Exxon, Faceplant

2020 is a no-good, very-bad year:

As for the lower earnings and sliding share price, Woods assured his conference-call audience that things were under control. Oil prices languishing in the $60-a-barrel range weren’t a problem but an opportunity. “We know demand will continue to grow, driven by rising population, economic growth, and higher standards of living,” Woods said. “We believe strongly that investing in the trough of this cycle has some real advantages.”

...Over the next several weeks, Covid-19 ravaged the oil industry by vaporizing global demand just as Russia and Saudi Arabia launched a price war. Investors were stunned to see oil fall to an 18-year-low of $22.74 a barrel at the end of March. An agreement aimed at cutting output and boosting prices failed to halt the slide, and on April 20 some oil contracts were trading for less than zero—sellers were paying buyers to take the crude. The fallout for producers large and small has been devastating. “You’re seeing fragilities exposed,” says Kenneth Medlock III, senior director of the Center for Energy Studies at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. “Covid-19 is doing things that nobody could have imagined.”