MRO had a mass layoff in April. Oil price has remained depressed for the last 8mo or so and there haven’t been any more layoffs—at least not en masse. So...what does that say about the people that were let go in April? Poor performers?
I’m really curious how they’re keeping everyone busy and making payroll with the low commodity price. I mean there are only so many PowerPoint presentations you gave give leadership teams about how you blew last years budget...
MRO is not making much money from shale plays. EG production is keeping the company solvent!
It's all just busy work. What does busy work look like at marathon? It's process improvement, well lookbacks, needless shuffling of the drill and / or frac schedules, well on paper exercises, data cleanup, updating spotfire tools, etc.
Frankly, this is the least busy I've been in my decade plus of working in oil and gas. I'm constantly worried about still having a job next year. My advice, save your money.
The previous poster makes a good point but as the OP said...I’m wondering how they’re keeping all the engineers busy with little to no activity.
IMO, this years cash flow is more about riding development from prior years and not this year's results. By simply cutting capital program in half, we've added hundreds of millions to our bottom line for this year. What does it say about the people laid off in April? Not much except that they were generally unlucky enough to not have a chair when the musical chairs stopped. Some were gomers for sure, but most were pretty good employees. Heck, we've had how money rounds of cuts in the past five years? How much dead weight could there have been?
The problem for next year is that we've got feed our unconventional monsters with more money and more wells because of the high decline rates. Maintaining a flat production profile in a reduced capital environment is very difficult. It's like coasting on your bike after you stop pedaling. You've got to eventually start pedaling again.