美国页岩钻井公司已为应对潜在信贷危机做好充分准备

据彭博新闻社报道，私募股权公司Kimmeridge能源管理公司表示，在积累现金并偿还大部分债务后，美国页岩勘探公司已经为应对潜在的信贷危机做好了充分准备。

Kimmeridge能源管理公司合伙人本·戴尔在接受媒体记者采访时表示：“我认为上游业务从未像今天这样处于较好的低迷状态。”“作为一个行业，我们正朝着基本上没有债务的方向发展。”

页岩行业历来严重依赖油气资产担保的贷款，这引发了人们的担忧，即席卷银行业的动荡将切断钻井公司获得信贷的渠道。与此同时，对经济衰退的担忧正在压低燃油价格，并有可能侵蚀两年来利润丰厚的局面。

但近几年来，页岩钻井公司已从不计后果的支出和不受限制的产量增长，转向严格的资本纪律。新的商业模式可能有助于保护该行业免受信贷危机的影响。

戴尔表示：“当油价升至每桶130美元时，我们对这些公司的自律程度印象深刻。”“当你看到大宗商品价格下跌时，我们对运营商的反应印象深刻，他们理性地减少在用钻机数量，专注于盈利。”

Kimmeridge持有公开上市的石油和天然气生产公司的股份，包括西维塔斯资源有限公司和切萨皮克能源公司。Kimmeridge还是怀俄明州泰坦勘探有限责任公司的所有者。

戴尔在2012年创立Kimmeridge之前曾是英国石油公司（bp）的勘探地质学家和地球物理学家，他预计今年美国页岩日产量将增长不到25万桶。这比他几个月前预测的水平下降大约10万桶。

劳动力短缺和供应链混乱造成的创纪录成本，导致美国页岩部门产量增长放缓。勘探公司也正在耗尽顶级探区资源。最近几个星期，美国一些最大的石油公司重申了今年保持产量低增长的计划。

戴尔表示：“如果企业产量增长，就会加剧库存问题。”“在资本进入这个领域，在市盈率扩大之前，实际上没有产量增长的真正动力。”

李峻 编译自 彭博新闻社

原文如下:

Kimmeridge: U.S. shale drillers “well prepared” to manage potential credit crisis

U.S. shale explorers are well prepared to manage a potential credit crisis after piling up cash and paying down most of their debt, according to private equity firm Kimmeridge Energy Management Co.

“I don’t think the upstream business has ever been in better position for a downturn than it is today,” Kimmeridge managing partner Ben Dell said in an interview. “We’re heading to being essentially debt-free as an industry.”

The shale industry has historically been heavily reliant on loans secured by their oil and gas assets, stoking concern that the turmoil engulfing the banking sector will cut off drillers’ access to credit. Fears of a recession, meanwhile, are weighing on fuel prices and threatened to erode profits after a two-year bonanza.

But shale drillers have made a strategic shift in recent years from reckless spending and unchecked output growth to strict capital discipline. The new business model could help shield the industry from the fallout of a credit crunch.

“When oil went to $130, we were kind of impressed by the level of discipline the companies held,” Dell said. “As you’ve seen commodities come down, we were pretty impressed by the reaction from operators in terms of being rational and dropping rigs and focusing on profitability.”

Kimmeridge holds stakes in publicly traded oil and gas producers including Civitas Resources Inc. and Chesapeake Energy Corp. It’s also the owner of Titan Exploration LLC in Wyoming.

Dell, who was an exploration geologist and geophysicist at BP Plc before founding Kimmeridge in 2012, expects oil from U.S. shale to grow by less than 250,000 bbl this year. That’s down by about 100,000 bbl from the level he would have predicted a few months ago, he said.

Record costs from a shortage of labor and supply-chain snarls are contributing to a slowdown in production growth from the U.S. shale patch. Explorers are also running out of top—tier acreage. In recent weeks, some of the biggest U.S. oil companies have reaffirmed plans to keep growth low this year.

“If you grow, you accelerate your inventory problem,” Dell said. “Until capital comes into the space, until multiples expand, there’s actually no real incentive to grow.”