The collapse of oil prices has killed off any appetite that the oil industry had for megaprojects that cost tens of billions of dollars. With scarce resources, oil companies have shifted their focus, pouring resources into short-cycle projects, which often means shale drilling. Liam Denning over at Bloomberg Gadfly put some numbers to the phenomenon, using data from Oslo-based Rystad Energy. The data is revealing, painting a portrait of an industry that has scaled down the size of new oil projects. Intriguingly, the focus on smaller oil fields began before the plunge in oil prices, although the price crash is accelerating that trend. Spending on oil fields that hold more than 1 billion barrels of reserves rose by 12.5 percent annually between 2000 and 2014. However, spending on oil fields between 30 million and 1 billion barrels increased by 15 and 16 percent each year. Moreover, spending on these […]