INSIGHT: Price Stabilization, Private Equity Engagement to Bolster Oil & Gas M&A Activity

摘要

Uncertainty about crude oil pricing and related bid/ask spreads (the diàerence between the highest price a buyer is willing to pay for an asset and the lowest price that a seller is willing to accept to sell it) created a thin mergers and acquisitions market during the last 12 months, forcing many companies to adopt a “wait-and-see” approach. According to a recent report from Drillinginfo Inc., M&A activity in the upstream U.S. oil and gas sector totaled $8.7 billion during the second quarter of 2018, down from $19.5 billion in the same period of 2017 and below a quarterly average of $17.8 billion since 2009. The notable exceptions to the slowdown have been companies recently emerged from Chapter 11 restructuring like Linn Energy, Samson Resources, and Vanguard Natural Resources, many of whom have executed on broad-based asset divestiture strategies;private equity-backed management teams; and most recently, strategic companies exiting large-scale domestic shale positions like BHP Billiton Ltd.