Although Norwegian oil giant Statoil is still investing a lot in the sector, the company is planning for oil to stay near $50 a barrel until 2018.
On Monday U.S. crude oil for December delivery traded at $45.84 a barrel, down 1.64%, while global benchmark Brent crude for December delivery was seen at $48.79 a barrel, down 1.55%.
The prices got under pressure Monday after China's Caixin manufacturing index came in at 48.3 against 47.5 expected and up from last month's 47.2. Figures below 50 indicate contraction.
"We think that 2018 might be the year when we see a rebound and that is taken into account in our planning assumptions,"
Hans Jakob Hegge, chief financial officer of Statoil, said in an interview with CNBC Monday.
"In February this year we had the capital markets update and we looked at (assumptions of) $60, $70 and $80 (per barrel) for the years 2016, 2017 and 2018 and now some peers are talking about looking at (assumptions of) $50 a barrel so we'll do another update in the new year."
Despite the continuous attempts to reduce costs, Statoil's Q3 profits came at nearly half of last year's level. Similar to its counterparts, the Norwegian company will try to maintain its dividend and
much of its exploration activity despite the volatile environment.
The company has taken down the capital expenditure from $18 billion this year to $17.5 billion and a further $1 billion lower this quarter, "so we're definitely working on the expenditure level in these volatile times," Hegge said.
Statoil has more than 40
projects in its development portfolio though they have delayed many
of them; but the firm is still investing a lot:
"This is the third highest investment level in history for the company, so we're still investing a lot more money but we will definitely look at our plans and try to improve them, because we sanction projects when the timing is right," he said.
