Spending Is Down But Deal Count Is Up As U.S. Dominates 2018 M&A Activity

Despite some positive signs of stability in oil and gas markets during 2018, the overall M&A spend in the upstream sector globally fell to its lowest level in at least a decade. The value of announced upstream deals reached just $132 billion; a 12% decline on the $151 billion recorded the year prior even though oil prices enjoyed their best year since the 2014 price downturn.

This was the key conclusion in Evaluate Energy’s global M&A review for 2018, which can be downloaded here now.

Source: Evaluate Energy M&A Report 2018

 “One crumb of comfort was evident in the increased level of underlying M&A activity,” said report author Eoin Coyne, a senior M&A analyst at Evaluate Energy. “The number of ‘significant’ deals — those with a value greater than $10 million — increased year-on-year by 9.5 per cent, reaching their highest level since 2014. Similar increases were visible in the number of deals greater than $50 million and $100 million.”

While global values fell, the United States in particular had a big year.

“As usual, North America dominated global deal values,” he added. “Just over $93 billion in new deals were announced in the U.S. and Canada, representing 71% of the global $132 billion total. The U.S. saw the world’s four biggest deals as part of the $82 billion contributed within the U.S. That’s a 24 per cent increase over the $66 billion in new U.S. deals in 2017.”

Source: Evaluate Energy M&A Database

For detailed analysis on the world’s biggest upstream M&A deals this year, download the Evaluate Energy M&A review of 2018 at this link.

  • Sections:
  • M&A

Dear user, please be aware that we use cookies to help users navigate our website content and to help us understand how we can improve the user experience. If you have ideas for how we can improve our services, we’d love to hear from you. Click here to email us. By continuing to browse you agree to our use of cookies. Please see our Privacy & Cookie Usage Policy to learn more.