Big Oil—and its smaller competitors—attracted a lot of praise for their tight financial discipline during the last three years, after Brent collapsed from more than US$100 a barrel to less than US$30 in less than 24 months. Some actually thought this may be the new normal: financial discipline, tight belts, and careful scrutiny of any new projects. Reality seems to have proven them wrong. Reuters reported this week that big oil companies’ boards are under increasing pressure to boost spending, expand production, and increase reserves. That’s just three years after everyone in oil woke up to the fact that Brent was going nowhere but down for a while longer and belts started tightening. Now, with Brent at US$85 and climbing, these belts are getting too tight, it seems. Despite pledges made by the chief executive officers of the biggest oil companies in the world, the strict financial discipline they […]