Upstream Demo Hub

What you need to know: Second-quarter 2021 upstream M&A summary

• The global upstream M&A deal flow rebounded from a dip during the prior quarter as crude oil prices breached $70/bbl during the second quarter. Global deal value was nearly $34 billion for the quarter, which was double the deal value of $17 billion in the first quarter.
• Deal count dropped below the five-year average and remained well below longer-term averages at a total of 46 deals for the quarter.
• A new round of North American corporate acquisitions represented a vast majority (82%) of total quarterly transaction value, with 8 of the top 10 largest deals featuring takeovers of unconventional resource producers.
• In the largest transaction during the quarter, Marcellus Shale–focused Cabot Oil & Gas agreed to expand operations into the Delaware Basin and the Anadarko Basin with a $9.6 billion acquisition of Cimarex Energy.
• The asset transaction value of $6 billion was almost half of the previous quarter’s.

After record lows in 2020 where the upstream M&A market bottomed out, deal activity has begun to rebound as industry conditions improve. Who will be buying and selling as companies restructure their global portfolios? What regions will attract M&A investment? Will valuations be declining or rising? What opportunities do the M&A market present during the shift to low carbon?

The new kid in town is the old kid in town, as the Haynesville reclaims dominance in US gas supply growth. As public producers are shackled by investor demands (which are finally being met), the private operator-rich Haynesville is not subject to the same forces. The Haynesville accounts for impressive supply growth of over 4.5 Bcf/d between January 2021 and December 2022.

Gas-directed capex is set to expand by a small but meaningful amount in 2022, increasing from $12 billion this year to $14 billion next year. While this does not appear significant, the increase in capex will help spur a dry gas recovery before oil price once again unleashes associated gas growth in 2023. The gas supply recovery will occur in three phases:

• 2021: Gas-directed rig activity recovers on the expectation of higher prices in 2022 as the market is undersupplied and producers need to catch up.
• Fall 2021 to year-end 2022: Supply grows by nearly 4.5 Bcf/d and the Haynesville displaces Appalachia as the key growth basin.
• 2023–24: Associated gas returns to drive gas price below $3/MMBtu and compete for market share with Haynesville.

Appalachian operators drive cash flow discipline. Regardless, the outcome is the same, as financial strength is returning with median debt-to-asset value dropping to 55% from 70% at the beginning of 2021. The Marcellus will see pre-interest free-cash flow margins lead the lower 48 onshore supply system, driven by a lack of capex increases and strong gas prices in the coming months.

The Brazil pre-salt is a world-class resource play that is expected to see rapid development despite the growing focus on the energy transition and net-zero emissions among upstream players. The pre-salt play extends from the Santos Basin through the Campos and into the Espirito Santo Basin. The three basins share similar geology, all containing an Aptian salt layer that was deposited during initial marine flooding of a set of essentially continental basins. The salt divides the geology into two, described as the pre- and post-salt. The 10 largest pre-salt discoveries (all in excess of 1 billion boe of recoverable resource) represent 77% of the total recoverable pre-salt resource discovered to date. Currently, sanctioned resource development projects are projected to drive pre-salt production to roughly 2.8 MMboe/d in 2025, essentially all sourced from the Santos Basin. While liquids development in the pre-salt is expected to grow rapidly, there is little expectation of material, incremental natural gas monetization from the pre-salt play. The pre-salt play remains uniformly core to those incumbent international oil companies (IOCs) and national oil companies (NOCs) that have announced portfolio rationalization initiatives and strategic positioning moves in response to climate change pressures and emission reduction goals. The willingness of incumbents to bid on available exploration acreage in the 17th pre-salt concession bid round in Fall 2021 will be an important indicator of how much additional exploration (versus development) capital they are willing to devote to the pre-salt play.

The Oil and Gas Risk: Global Risk Outlook provides an overview of the global risk environment and identifies key trends and associated risk-factor scores “on watch” for movement during the next 12–18 months in Africa, Asia Pacific, the Commonwealth of Independent States, Europe and North America, Latin America, and the Middle East and North Africa.

Just over 100 days into the Biden administration the policy reset is gaining pace, changing the US approach to climate, upstream development, and energy use. Some impairment to US upstream competitiveness seems an inevitable consequence of increased regulation and curtailments on access driven by environmental concerns. More critically, given the role of the US industry in energy supply, emissions, and investment, the US Federal Government has the potential to bring about far-reaching changes in the global energy context, with varied upstream implications across the rest of the world. This webinar laid the groundwork for key themes in the reset and explored the implications for the Middle East and North Africa and Asia Pacific regions, flagging areas of changing risk as a result of US policy pivots.

The Subsea Equipment market segment supports category and supplier management workflows with regularly updated and actionable Market Segment Analysis (MSA) reports, supplier profiles, and cost models. Demand for subsea equipment is currently still at a historic low with only 4 projects awarded since October 2020 compared to 11 in the corresponding period last year – a 64% decline. The price of oil is however inching upwards and has passed the USD50 per barrel mark on the new Saudi-Russia oil production agreement. Combined with tax incentive packages this could lead to localized demand increases in 2021. As a slight sign of renewed optimism TechnipFMC has resumed the process to split the company in two, with the split being finalized late in the first quarter of 2021.

The offshore decommissioning industry has been around for a long time, activity has increased significantly over the last 10 years and is expected to grow further over the next 10 years. This has put offshore decommissioning as an area of focus for the oil and gas industry and their stakeholders. So, what is driving this trend?

As the oil industry comes under increasing pressure to decarbonize, companies are responding in several ways. A common denominator underlying most of them―reducing emissions from core operations, exploiting existing oil and gas assets for decarbonization purposes, launching new low-carbon business lines―is the technology and broader forms of innovation needed to enable them. Because the pace and direction of technology advances in these areas will largely determine the industry’s progress toward its low-carbon future, S&P Global believes it is critical to closely track and analyze developments.

• Significant emissions reduction opportunities are available now. S&P Global analysis suggests that companies can reduce emissions associated with core operations (scope 1 and 2 emissions) by up to 30–60% over the short to medium term, with moderate capital investments. These opportunities lie primarily in the areas of energy and operational efficiency, methane containment, and incorporation of low-carbon power sources.
• Deeper decarbonization demands further technology advances. The oil and gas sector is well positioned to lead in those low-carbon areas that borrow heavily from core industry resources and competencies (e.g., carbon capture, utilization, and storage, geothermal). At the same time, while many of these technologies are already technically feasible, additional 30–50% cost reductions are needed to make them economically viable under current conditions.
• Innovation models are adjusting. Companies are realizing that traditional technology development methods may not be as appropriate as they shift into new low-carbon domains, and are instead embracing open innovation strategies (e.g., engagement with startups, technology development partnerships) to tap into new ideas emerging from outside the industry. S&P Global analysis reveals that two-thirds of technology startups receiving oil company investment are in the clean energy space, with partnership activity levels rapidly catching up.

Oil and gas companies, and also other players along the value chain, are multiplying their initiatives in the low-carbon space as the energy transition gains momentum.

Higher budgets and more ambitious growth targets for these new energies, on top of net-zero commitments, have been announced by more companies with European Global Integrated Oil Companies (GIOCs) leading the pack.

In this session, we explored how GIOCs are integrating new energies into their reporting lines, the financing options for growth in new energies, and the vital role occupied by M&A as the urgency to gain scale in these sectors is becoming more acute.

Although perceived as being less enraptured by the energy transition, many national oil companies have also made bold moves into the low-carbon space.

Various companies in oilfield services and equipment are employing a broad range of strategies to gain technical expertise in low-carbon sectors of choice.