页岩生产商释放更多利润现金回报投资者

据美国彭博新闻社2022年8月12日报道，美国页岩钻井公司的债务负担在第二季度进一步下降，这表明他们如今有额外的现金来支付股息、回购股票或进行资产收购。

在石油和天然气生产商中，一项通常用来衡量企业偿还贷款能力的指标普遍有所改善，因为这些公司回购了一些债券，并在利润不断膨胀的情况下囤积现金。彭博新闻社日前公布的统计数据显示，包括康菲公司和先锋自然资源公司在内的美国一批独立页岩钻井公司公布的第二季度净债务与扣除利息和税收等项目的年度收益的平均比例不到0.6倍，低于去年同期的大约1.7倍。

彭博情报（Bloomberg Intelligence）分析师斯宾塞•卡特表示：“许多油气勘探和生产企业已经达到或正在迅速接近其债务目标。”“与2015年或2020年崩盘时相比，能源企业在修复和强化资产负债表方面已经取得了很大进展，如今它们在应对大宗商品价格再次下跌方面的地位要强大得多。”

在疫情暴发之前，页岩公司是油气产量增长的引擎，因为投资者将资金投入该行业。疫情的暴发大幅削减了石油需求，压低了油价，迫使许多能源公司要么破产，要么停产。由于需求从2020年的崩溃中恢复，如今许多页岩钻井公司对此谨慎应对，适度增加产量，并优先考虑回报投资者。

李峻 编译自 美国彭博新闻社

原文如下：

Substantial shale profits free up more cash to reward investors

Shale drillers saw their debt burden fall further in the second quarter, signaling extra room for them to pay dividends, buy back shares or make acquisitions.

A metric commonly used to measure companies’ ability to pay down their borrowings has widely improved among oil and gas producers as they repurchase some bonds and pile up cash amid ballooning profits. Net debt reported by a group of independent drillers including ConocoPhillips and Pioneer Natural Resources Co. averaged less than 0.6 time their annual earnings before items such as interest and taxes in the second quarter, down from roughly 1.7 time a year earlier, Bloomberg data show.

“Many E&Ps have reached, or are very quickly approaching, their debt target,” said Spencer Cutter, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. “Energy companies have come a long way toward repairing and reinforcing their balance sheets and are in a much stronger position today to handle another downturn in commodity prices than they were going into the 2015 or 2020 crashes.” 

Prior to the pandemic, shale companies were engines of production growth as investors plowed money into the sector. The onset of Covid decimated oil demand and cratered prices, forcing many companies either into bankruptcy or to shut in production. As demand recovers from the 2020 collapse, many shale drillers have responded cautiously, increasing output moderately and prioritizing