It’s been a rough year for oil, to say that least. And the worst isn’t over yet. Even though oil demand, and therefore oil prices, have been slowly recovering, that upward trajectory is now running out of steam and we’re headed toward a slump amidst what will almost certainly be a yearslong recession in the wake of the economic fallout from the devastating spread of the novel coronavirus. Even as oil demand and prices have recovered, the tried and true economic model is no longer a failsafe option for oil and gas companies. Pumping crude just isn’t paying the bills. This is not solely due to the COVID-19 pandemic–it’s been a long evolution in the sector. “Over the past decade, the ‘oil’ companies, whose profits were mostly derived from pumping crude out of the oil fields they discovered, transformed themselves into ‘oil and gas’ companies,” oil strategist Julian Lee […]