Oil & Gas Producers
Industry Profile Report
Dive Deep into the industry with a 25+ page industry report (pdf format) including the following chapters
Industry Overview Current Conditions, Industry Structure, How Firms Operate, Industry Trends, Credit Underwriting & Risks, and Industry Forecast.
Call Preparation Call Prep Questions, Industry Terms, and Weblinks.
Financial Insights Working Capital, Capital Financing, Business Valuation, and Financial Benchmarks.
Industry Profile Excerpts
Industry Overview
The 4,600 oil and gas producers in the US sell crude petroleum and natural gas from on-shore and off-shore wells to refineries, energy brokers, and other energy companies. Industry revenue is about evenly split between crude petroleum and natural gas.
Oil and Gas Price Volatility
Large declines in oil and gas prices have repercussions for producers.
Tapping Domestic Shale Deposits
The costs and hazards of transporting natural gas over long distances by ship dictate that the US’s primary sources of natural gas be domestic.
Industry size & Structure
A typical oil and gas producer operates from a single location and has annual revenues of $50 million.
- There are about 4,600 oil and gas exploration and production firms in the US that employ 117,000 workers and generate $230 billion in annual revenue.
- 81% of firms have fewer than 10 employees and just 4% have more than 100 employees.
- Large exploration and production firms include: Exxon Mobil (Integrated), Chevron (Integrated), Apache Corporation, Occidental Petroleum, Devon Energy, and Range Resources.
- Entry into the business is difficult, as exploration is expensive and a proven track record is essential in attracting capital.
- In addition, the competition for high-quality drilling and services is intense, and preference is given to partners with good prior experiences.
Industry Forecast
Oil & Gas Producers Industry Growth
Recent Developments
Dec 27, 2024 - Declining Prices
- Producer prices for oil and gas extraction firms fell 11.5% in November compared to a year ago after sinking 17.9% in the previous November-versus-November annual comparison, according to the latest US Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Industry producer prices had skyrocketed between the onset of the pandemic and mid-2022, when gas prices peaked but have since fallen back to earth. Employment by oil and gas extraction firms grew 1.9% year over year in November, while average wages fell 5% YoY in October to $42.26 per hour, BLS data show.
- The post-election mood in the oil and gas industry is one of high optimism, according to The American Oil & Gas Reporter. “It borders on exuberant,” described Karr Ingham, president of Texas Alliance of Energy Producers. There’s a sense of relief in the industry that the Biden administration’s anti-fossil-fuels approach will soon be in the past. The national trade association for the oil and gas industry, the American Petroleum Institute, has a roadmap for the incoming Trump administration that includes swiftly authorizing liquified natural gas exports, expanding drilling on federal lands, making pipeline permitting easier, repealing strict vehicle emissions and fuel economy standards, and keeping current corporate tax rates in place. Trump has said he’ll create a National Energy Council to “oversee the path to US energy dominance,” and has tapped Doug Bergum, governor of oil-rich North Dakota to head the Interior Department.
- According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), natural gas production in the US will decline in 2024 amid record high demand. The agency projected that dry gas production would ease from a record 103.8 billion cubic feet per day in 2023 to 103.5 billion cubic feet per day in 2024 as some producers cut back on their drilling activities after average gas prices sank to a 32-year low in March. In 2025, the EIA projects output to rise to 104.6 billion cubic feet per day.
- Oil and gas production companies are expanding offshore drilling operations in the Gulf of Mexico in part because doing so releases fewer greenhouse gases than drilling on land, The New York Times reports. Industry executives are betting on sustained demand for oil and gas for years to come and argue that offshore drilling is better for the climate than drilling on land because offshore operations emit far less greenhouse gases than producing the same amount of oil and gas on land, according to NYT. The greenhouse gas emissions associated with extracting a barrel of oil from the Gulf of Mexico are as much as a third lower than emissions from producing a barrel of oil from fields on US soil, according to a report published last year by the National Ocean Industries Association, an industry group for offshore oil, gas, and wind businesses, cited by NYT.
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