Wednesday, 8 October, 2025 / Edition 79

Did you celebrate the Mid-Autumn (aka the Moon Cake) Festival? It was on 6 October this year, which was supposed to be the “fullest moon” of the year in the eighth month of the lunar calendar. It symbolizes togetherness and family reunion in Chinese culture. My family only got to celebrate it virtually as our kids are scattered around the world…

Now, let’s dig into two pieces of energy news from the past week.

Shangyou Nie

Editor, Well Read

ExxonMobil is the Latest Major to Announce Job Cuts

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ExxonMobil has announced it will cut about 2,000 employees, roughly 3–4 percent of its global workforce. The American major will also consolidate its smaller offices into reginal hubs to reduce costs.

ExxonMobil is the latest major to announce job cuts following U.S. peers Chevron and ConocoPhillips, as the industry copes with a sustained period of low oil prices.

About ExxonMobil’s job cuts:

• On 30 September, ExxonMobil announced a re-organization for its E.U. and Norway businesses.

• According to Bloomberg, ExxonMobil CEO and Chairman Darren Woods sent a memo to his employees to announce the cuts.

  • Europe and Canada will be most impacted during this latest round of cuts, with around 1,200 job cuts in the former and 900 in Imperial Oil, ExxonMobil’s Canadian subsidiary.

• According to Bloomberg, about 500 jobs in Singapore will also be cut before the end of 2027.

By the numbers:

• ExxonMobil has 7,000 employees in the E.U. and Norway.

• ExxonMobil had 61,000 employees at the end of 2024.

• Since 2019, ExxonMobil has reduced its workforce by some 20 percent.

Other layoffs in 2025:

• The industry is facing pressure from low oil prices.

  • In 2025, the Brent oil price has dropped from an average monthly price of $79.27 per barrel in January to $67.99 per barrel in September.

• Chevron announced a 15–20 percent workforce reduction (6,000–8,000 job cuts) in February. It now has 45,000 employees.

• ConocoPhillips announced plans to lay off 3,250 people, about 25 percent of its workforce, in September. It employes about 11,800.

• BP announced it would cut some 6,000 jobs in August, representing 15.5 percent of its “office-based” headcount. In total, BP has 91,000 employees.

• Even Petronas, a national oil company from Malaysia, announced it would lay off some 5,000 people (10 percent of its workforce) in June.

• U.S. independent APA announced in January that it would lay off 15 percent of its workforce (300 employees).

What they’re saying: “We plan to bring the majority of our office and home-based employees together at, or closer to, our manufacturing sites in the region (including, for example, in Germany and Italy), and we intend to close a number of smaller offices,” ExxonMobil said in a statement.

What to watch:

• There could be further downward pressure on oil prices, as OPEC+ agreed on 5 October to raise oil production by 137,000 barrels per day in eight countries.

  • Saudi Arabia and Russia will lead the increase, each growing by 41,000 barrels per day, to reach 10.1 and 9.5 million barrels per day in November, respectively.

• If the price of oil stays low for longer, more industry consolidation is expected in the coming one to two years.

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TotalEnergies Deepens Investments in U.S. Upstream

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TotalEnergies continues to expand its upstream gas portfolio in the United States, acquiring a 49-percent interest in gas assets operated by Continental Resources in the Anadarko Basin in Oklahoma. The French major said that this transaction adds to its integrated LNG position in the United States. In the same week, TotalEnergies sold half of its U.S. solar energy to KKR.

About the upstream buy:

• According to TotalEnergies, it signed an agreement with Continental Resources on 29 September. The transaction’s value was not disclosed.

• The assets are currently producing roughly 150 million cubic feet of gas per day and have the potential to double by 2030, providing a long-term production base for TotalEnergies.

  • TotalEnergies claims that these gas assets are “low-cost” and have a “long plateau.”

  • The gas assets are “well connected to Henry Hub” through existing midstream infrastructure, said TotalEnergies in its press release.

Total’s U.S. gas portfolio:

• TotalEnergies has gas assets in the Eagle Ford that it acquired in 2024.

• TotalEnergies also operates 500 million cubic feet of gas per day in the Barnett shale in Texas.

About the solar energy sale:

• According to TotalEnergies, it signed an agreement with KKR to sell 50 percent of its 1.4-gigawatt solar portfolio in North America. The solar assets are mostly based in the United States.

• TotalEnergies will remain the operator for the assets and retain 50 percent equity.

• TotalEnergies’ solar portfolio is valued at $1.25 billion.

• TotalEnergies will receive $950 million from the asset sale and financing.

• TotalEnergies, similar to many other renewable energy developers, tends to identify and mature its projects with a large or 100-percent equity.

  • It then cashes in its investments once the projects go into commercial production by diluting its equity but remaining an operator. This ensures value delivery.

The bigger picture:

• TotalEnergies has a market cap of $130 billion.

• The company currently produces about 2.5 million barrels of oil equivalent per day. It wants to grow its oil and gas production by 3 percent annually from 2025 to 2030.

• TotalEnergies is the world’s third-largest LNG player, with a portfolio of 40 million tonnes per annum in 2024. It wants to grow to 60 million tonnes per annum by 2030.

• TotalEnergies has 10 million tonnes per annum of LNG export capacity in the United States.

  • TotalEnergies wants to grow to 15 million tonnes per annum of export capacity by 2030.

• TotalEnergies has invested more than $11 billion in the United States since 2022 and has 6,000 employees in 41 states.

• According to the WSJ, in response to low oil prices, TotalEnergies said during its Strategy Day on 29 September that it will reduce its annual CapEx budget by $1 billion to $16 billion in 2026. Its Capex could drop to $15 billion per year if oil prices decrease.

What they are saying: “This acquisition will further increase our natural gas production in the USA and consolidate TotalEnergies’ integrated LNG position with competitive low-cost and low-emission gas production,” said Nicolas Terraz, TotalEnergies President of E&P division.

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✉️ To get in touch with Shangyou, send an email to editorial@aapg.org.