How do you ride out low oil prices and still pay dividends and CEO salaries? You double down on debt, apparently. All oil majors posted plunging profits or accumulated losses in the second quarter, blaming low crude prices and weak refining margins for these results that missed estimates—in some cases by wide margins. All saw cash flows shrinking, and yet, all kept dividends intact and vowed to continue investing in their respective major projects. Quite naturally, all these factors have led to supermajors amassing more and more debt since crude oil prices started slumping in 2014. Estimates by Bloomberg have shown that oil majors have doubled their combined debts to US$138 billion since 2014. That’s also a staggering tenfold jump from the 2008 total oil major debts. Looking at the Q2 balance sheets of some oil majors, we see debts rising, cash flows dropping, capex diminishing, but dividends firmly […]