Xi Ordered China’s Oil Industry to Drill, Then the Crash Came

Xi Ordered China’s Oil Industry to Drill, Then the Crash Came

Oil's historic price crash is presenting an uncomfortable dilemma to China's energy majors: follow market signals to cut drilling, or heed President Xi Jinping's orders to boost output.. Lower oil prices are definitely going to hurt the cash flow for those Big Three oil majors.. Crude prices have tumbled by nearly half since the beginning of the year as the coronavirus outbreak saps demand and Saudi Arabia and Russia unleash supply in what appears to be the start of a price war.. PetroChina, the country's biggest oil company, described some of its fields as having "no hope " of being profitable during the 2016 price crash.. By then, the country had surpassed the U.S. to become the world's biggest oil importer.. With trade tensions boiling, Xi instructed state-owned energy firms to boost output.. While the oil crash will hurt drillers' profits, it offers another way for the country to boost energy security, said Tian Miao, an analyst at Everbright Sun Hung Kai Co..