Oil Rig Bulls grinned on Thursday last week when Brent Crude rallied past the US$50 price mark for the first time in six weeks. The biggest oil companies may have breathed a sigh of relief – well, again – but oil at US$50 is still not enough to jumpstart the industry, which has been reeling from reduced profits since crude prices crashed in 2014. Since then, Big Oil has cut on capital investment and staff costs, increased borrowing and doubled debts in order to maintain dividends and keep shareholders happy. Executives are a little more upbeat than they were at the US$27 oil price near the beginning of this year, but they all agree that the US$50 mark itself – especially if short-lived – is not the strongest of signals that recovery is around the corner. In order to rebalance capital and costs, companies have started slashing investments in […]