RE: Times article - new2 May 2020 11:19
For Enquest the steps are crucial to its survival, helping it to cut costs of$300 million this year. It plans to focus on three core fields where it believes that it can cut costs to $15 a barrel this year and $12 next. “If you’d asked me when we started the company ten years ago, I thought that would have been an impossibility.” The cost-cutting should enable Enquest to generate enough cash to cover its company spending even at lower oil prices. Last year it needed $50 a barrel to break even; this year that should fall to $33 on average, requiring only $25 a barrel for the remainder of the year.
Brent was still hovering below that level when we spoke at the start of the week, but Mr Bseisu, speaking via video call from his Knightsbridge home, seemed relaxed. First, he sees prices rebounding, especially given that supply cuts such as Enquest’s will be permanent. “I think prices definitely significantly above these prices we will see again: $40s, $50s, will be on the cards in the next few years, depending on how much supply is removed off the market.”
Second, he said that Enquest had $270 million of liquidity available, which its stress tests showed would enable it to “survive at $10 a barrel for a year”.