The massive wave of investment that went into offshore oil projects earlier this decade may produce a lot of oil, but profits might not materialize. Earlier this decade, between 2010 and 2014, oil prices traded at levels that are hard to imagine today, often rising above $100 per barrel. That led to huge wave of spending on costly, often high-risk oil projects, many of which were offshore in deepwater or ultra-deepwater. The projects may have made sense when oil was north of $100 per barrel, although even then there were serious questions. Cost blowouts and budget-busting delays began to force a rethink years ago, before oil prices crashed. The oft-delayed more-than-$50 billion Kashagan oil field in Kazakhstan epitomized the pre-2014 reckless spending habits of the industry. However, the collapse of oil prices that began in 2014, which saw oil prices fall by more than half, led to a steep […]