Oil's Big Reset: Energy Majors Learn to Thrive After Price Crash - Bloomberg

Oil's Big Reset: Energy Majors Learn to Thrive After Price Crash - Bloomberg:

When OPEC started an oil-price war in late 2014, most people believed U.S. shale was doomed. In reality, the giant oil majors suffered most -- burdened by expensive mega-projects, Chevron Corp., BP Plc and the rest struggled to adapt to the fall in energy prices.

Slowly, those companies figured out how to survive in the lower-for-longer price era. They cut costs and, more importantly, learned how to stop them from rising again. In an industry that favored tailored solutions for every project, companies started to talk about standardization. At closed-door sessions in Davos, Switzerland, Big Oil bosses didn’t waste time on self-important talk, but instead discussed how to share the design of anything from underwater valves to pumps.

Nearly five years after the crash, the cultural change is starting to work. The world’s major energy companies have managed to press the reset button, allowing them to make profits today similar to what they did in a world of $100-plus a barrel oil prices.