All energy companies find themselves in a world of hurt right now, but none more so than the lumbering majors. Over the years, they’ve swollen to grotesque proportions, feeding on the dream that oil prices would soar into the triple digits “any year now.” Year after year, they waited for that fabled moment—and year after year, the prices obstinately refused to comply. For more than a decade this farce has played out, and while inflation has eroded the real impact of what a $100 barrel would mean compared to a decade ago, even that symbolic milestone remains elusive.
Somewhere along the line, the majors stopped believing the miracle would ever arrive. Their balance sheets are now laden with heavy, expensive projects—cathedrals of capital expenditure—that simply cannot make decent money at today’s prices. Add to this the looming specter of a global depression, no longer a distant warning but a reality slowly hardening around them, and the mood inside these behemoths begins to sour. They’re starting to get the message, however reluctantly.
And just when they might have hoped for some reprieve, along comes the cherry on top: the relentless rise of computing power and digital technologies. These new tools make teams more flexible, operations more streamlined, and—inevitably—human labor more dispensable. Implementing these technologies takes time, of course, especially those that allow management to quietly thin the herd. But once the bite comes, it’s real and it’s deep. The workforce will feel it first, as it always does.This was bound to happen. The majors are staring at a perfect storm: flat prices, expensive assets, collapsing demand, and technological knives quietly sharpened in the background. And you can be sure—this won’t be a one-off. Watch for more of the same.