Oil majors’ output growth hinges on strategy shift

Western oil majors need to speed up a strategic shift into more complex oil and gas projects if they wish to return to consistent production growth after another quarter of disappointing output.
The world’s largest fully public-traded oil company by market capitalization, Exxon Mobil, on Thursday reported an 8 percent fall in oil and gas production, compared to the same period in 2007.

Industry No 2 Royal Dutch Shell said output dropped 1.6 percent while No 3 BP Plc’s was flat.

The results follow a trend of falling output and ditched or scaled back growth targets across the sector in recent years.

“The track record of delivering on production growth has been poor,” said Gary Hobbs, senior analyst at Fortis Private Banking.

Reuters