A month ago, ConocoPhillips warned it would book a $600-million impairment to its first-quarter profits from its acquisition of Concho Resources and, as Reuters reported at the time, related oil price hedges. Now, it is emerging that Concho is not the only one that hedged too early. When the price of crude oil began to recover last year after a devastating first half of the year, U.S. oil producers began to hedge their 2021 output at higher prices. They hedged less than normally, Rystad Energy noted in an October report, at 41 percent of their forecast production in 2021. But they hedged this at an average of $42 per barrel of crude. That compared with a bottom hedging price of $56 per barrel for 2020 production Rystad said in its report. Then prices climbed higher but, it seems, many oil producers continue hedging at low prices into 2021. Now, […]