From the Wall Street Journal:
Aramco looks for cut costs, asking oil-services providers for deals; pushing for a phone-bill discount
Saudi Arabia’s refusal late last year to rein in oil production helped trigger the price crash that has hurt oil-producing countries and publicly listed energy companies alike. And now even the kingdom’s own oil company is feeling the pain.
As a result, state-owned Saudi Aramco is looking for ways to cut costs everywhere, from pushing contractors for better deals on oil-well services to negotiating discounts on its phone and power bills, according to people familiar with the matter.
The company—the world’s largest oil producer—is also considering slashing its future spending on production and exploration by as much as 25%, much like private oil companies, industry sources said.
“Like everyone else, we’re using the downturn as an opportunity to sharpen our fiscal discipline,” Aramco CEO Khalid Al Falih said in public remarks during the World Economic Forum in Davos in January. “We’re cutting on a few things that we could cut, but we’re as committed as ever to our long-term strategy.”
The measures demonstrate some of the risks the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries took when it decided in November to forsake its traditional role of cutting production to boost prices. The Saudi-backed decision has hurt big, publicly listed companies, such as Royal Dutch Shell PLC and Chevron Corp., but is now ricocheting and hitting national oil companies....MORE
