Plunging oil prices are putting pressure on big energy companies in a way not seen in at least a decade.
Just-reported second quarter profit reported by the three giant integrated oil companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 — Chevron (CVX), Exxon Mobil (XOM) and Occidental Petroleum (OXY) — fell to $4.9 billion, according to a USA TODAY analysis of data from S&P Capital IQ.
That's the lowest quarterly profit in at least 10 years — taking out the previous recent low of $6.4 billion in the second quarter of 2009 amid the pain of the financial crisis.
The drop in oil prices and their stubborn resistance to move higher has caused enormous pain for investors in big oil. The price of West Texas Crude has lost more than half its value over the past year — a crushing blow for the big energy companies to absorb. Most of them haven't been able to cut costs fast enough to defray the imploding price of the underlying commodity.
Investors didn't waste any time adjusting the stock prices of the big oil companies to reflect their profit free fall. Shares of Exxon Mobil — the USA's biggest oil company — fell another $3.80, or 4.6% Friday to $79.65 after the company reported a 49% drop in adjusted quarterly profit of $1.06 a share. Shares of Exxon are down 14% this year. Shares of Occidental dropped $1.20, or 1.7%, to $70.20 on Friday.
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