訊 據8月26日City AM報道，由于新冠肺炎疫情導致需求大幅下降，沙特阿拉伯和俄羅斯的石油價格爭端以及隨后為穩定暴跌的油價而進行減產協議，為油氣行業的并購創造了前所未有的環境。
最近的虛擬圓桌討論會就當前市場壓力和并購交易展開討論。SS&C Intralinks公司的高級市場情報分析師Elizabeth Lim表示:“雖然短期內會有一些痛苦，但為了克服我們目前的處境，需要進行系統性和長期的變革。”并強調了近年來石油和天然氣市場經常動蕩的嚴峻形勢。
Lim補充道:“短期內，我們已經看到并將繼續看到上游板塊出現大量的困境和生存危機，但我們也將看到中游板塊和其他領域的機會。幸存下來的大公司可以看到資產收購的豐厚利潤。從長遠來看，很明顯，為了生存，這個行業需要改變和適應。如果疫情沒有發生，另一場危機就會發生。我們已經看到，氣候變化和可再生能源的崛起將會持續下去。這不僅開始影響全球范圍內的公司政策和戰略舉措，也開始影響那些受影響地區的政府決策。”
Jamie Garrett表示，油氣行業下游板塊已經顯現出很大的彈性，公用事業將電力提供給終端用戶的綜合模式在這一動蕩時期相當穩定和成功。
Garrett稱："你將看到市場持續的聚合和整合，但我認為市場范圍也將擴大。當我們談到傳統石油企業時，我們會想到殼牌這樣的企業。他們非常積極地進入零售市場和新技術領域。在這些領域，他們有凈零目標和ESG目標，所以我認為會開始看到更多的活動，而且規模可能會小得多。”
Together, they shared their perspectives and provided historical context for this combustible combination of current market pressures and events.
“While there will be some short-term pain, systemic and long-term change is needed in order to overcome where we are today,” said panelist Elizabeth Lim, senior market intelligence analyst at SS&C Intralinks, who kicked off our roundtable discussion highlighting the often-tumultuous Oil and Gas landscape in recent history.
“In the short-term, we have seen and will continue to see a significant amount of distress and existential crisis for upstream, but we’ll also see opportunities in midstream and other areas,” said Lim. “Larger firms that survive could see a bonanza in asset acquisitions on the horizon.”
Lim added that, in the long-term, “it’s very clear that the industry has a need for changing and adapting in order to survive. If COVID-19 didn’t happen, another crisis would have.
“We’ve already seen that things like climate change and the rise of renewables are here to stay. This is really starting to affect not only corporate policy strategic initiatives around the globe but also governments in those affected regions.”
Jamie Garrett said that the industry has seen a lot of resilience on the downstream side. She observed that the integrated model of utilities delivering power generation to end-users has been quite stable and successful during this time of upheaval.
“You are going to see continuing aggregation plays and consolidation in the market, but I think we are also going to see scope extension,” said Garrett. “When we talk about traditional oil players, somebody like a Shell comes to mind. They’ve been very, very active entering the retail markets and entering new technologies where they have the net-zero targets and their ESG target, so I think you’re going to start seeing more activity there, and it’s probably going to be on a much, much smaller scale.”
Garrett added that companies will be “diving into the lower end of the mid-cap size transactions, but there are going to be opportunities for those companies who still have cash on their balance sheets to make moves during and post this crisis.”
