The rating agency Standard and Poor’s (SP) Monday lowered the credit ratings of Royal Dutch Shell and warned they could fall further, such as those of five other oil majors, including the French Total, due to plummeting Crude prices.
“We lowered our rating of Royal Dutch Shell to ‘AA- / A-1 +’ to ‘A + / A-1′ and placed the long-term credit rating on negative watch,” he the US agency said in a statement.
This corresponds to a degradation of a notch short credit notes and long term.
The ratings of five other heavyweights of oil and gas have also been placed under negative watch, which means they are likely to be lowered in turn: those of French Total, British BP, the Italian Eni, the Spanish Repsol and the Norwegian Statoil.
“There is a high probability of degradation of a notch notes of several European integrated majors”, which could occur in the two weeks following the publication of their annual results, said SP.
“The magnitude of the fall in oil prices – 52% on average in 2015 – will not be covered by cost reductions and investments decided by most oil companies during the year “Has she added.
Maintaining, for most of them, a generous dividend at the expense of investments ultimately affect cash generating projects, she has said.
This follows the downgrade by the rating agency, on January 12, its oil price forecasts and gas for 2016.
SP now expects Brent crude to $ 40 this year, to $ 45 in 2017, and $ 50 thereafter.
No comments:
Post a Comment