The trials and tribulations facing the oil and gas industry are well known. Oil prices went into freefall at the start of this year with Brent crude, the international oil benchmark, reaching a 12-year low of $27 a barrel in January. Since then the price has climbed to around $40 a barrel but is still well short of the $115 a barrel it was trading at in June 2014.
Furthermore the headwinds facing oil and gas companies remain strong. The market is still experiencing an oversupply of oil of around 2m barrels a day, fuelled by new shale technologies. In the meantime, the amount of debt oil companies took on during the boom years is now a serious cause for concern.
With all this bad news, many investors have decided to give the major oil companies a wide berth. But others feel that the bearishness has been overdone and value opportunities exist within the sector.