PARIS French oil major Total said Monday it would slash investment spending by a fifth, cut an additional half billion dollars in costs and halt share buybacks as it seeks to deal with a plunge in the price of crude because of the coronavirus outbreak. To deal with the price of oil, which plummeted by more than half to under $30 per barrel, the firm said it had adopted an action plan. The plan includes cutting capital spending by “more than $3 billion, ie. more than 20 percent, reducing 2020 net investments to less than $15 billion”. It announced “$800 million of savings in 2020 on operating costs compared to 2019”, up from $300 million previously announced. Total also announced it would suspend its share buyback programme, a method used by many firms to return funds to shareholders. It had planned to repurchase $2 billion of its shares in 2020 and announced it bought back $550 million in the first two months. Officials around the world have imposed confinement measures on their citizens in an attempt to slow the spread of the coronavirus, leading to a slump in demand for oil. Meanwhile, Russia and Saudi Arabia have launched a price war and stepped up production, adding further downward pressure to prices. Total’s chief executive Patrick Pouyanne, said that global demand for oil was likely to drop by 6 million barrels per day while an additional 3-4 billion barrels per day were likely to flood the market. “This explains why the price of oil has collapsed,” Pouyanne said in a video message to Total staff on the company’s website. He said Total was in a much better position than the last time oil prices collapsed in 2014, when its break-even point for investments was over $100 barrel. Today, it “is under $25 a barrel, so we still have some leeway”. In addition, production costs have been squeezed down to $5 from $10, said Pouyanne. The firm’s debt level is half of what it was in 2014 as well, he added.—APP
