Oil prices have fallen to multi-decade lows as the COVID-19 pandemic has brought economic and industrial activity to a halt around the world. Oil consumption has plunged by 30% and is expected to decline by an average of 10% for the full year. As a result, the world is awash in a massive oversupply of crude oil that's expected to keep oil prices low for many months, and that's expected to cause it to take much longer for the oil industry to benefit from the eventual recovery of economic activity.
That's made a massive swath of the oil patch uninvestable. We have already seen companies start to file bankruptcy, and the number that becomes insolvent is only going to grow longer in the weeks and months ahead. In other words, it's likely to get worse for many companies in the oil and gas industry before it gets better.
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