It is pretty clear there is a wide divergence in performance among the largest North American oil and gas production companies. At mid-year 2015 we did a study on the largest players, those that at time had a market capitalization (total value of equity) greater than $1 Billion. That screen resulted in approximately 90 companies engaged in exploration and production in the US and Canada. The study illustrated in pretty stark terms that during the 10 year period 2004-14 only a few companies met the number one performance criterion, Return on Invested Capital (ROIC). Further, this was the boom period culminating in oil prices over $100 per barrel. If a company were to succeed, this would be it, yet only a few did.
One year later, it seems sensible to take another look to see how the Stars, Contenders, Vulnerable, Struggling and Troubled companies had performed during the downturn. To say...