Analysts: Look For Faster Pace of Oil & Gas Asset Sales, M&A as Industry Right-Sizes

SUGAR LAND--July 28, 2015--Written by John Egan for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--As crude oil prices settle into a new normal of about $50 per barrel, Oil & Gas companies increasingly will look to grow their reserves and production by acquisition rather than drilling, analysts predict. Asset purchases and corporate acquisitions, sometimes called "drilling for oil on Wall Street," is one of the industry's traditional responses to crude-oil price volatility. In a recent analysis, credit ratings firm Standard & Poor's (S&P) predicted U.S. exploration and production (E&P) companies will cut their full-year 2015 capital budgets by about $72 billion, or roughly 30%, compared to 2014 outlays.

Within this article: Near-term predictions for the Oil & Gas Industry.

Additional companies: McGraw Hill Financial Incorporated (NYSE:MHFI), Moody's Corporation (NYSE:MCO)