Moody’s downgraded its credit ratings on four of the seven international oil majors in late March and early April following a review started 22 January in the light of the 60%-plus oil price collapse since mid 2014.
France’s Total had its rating cut by two notches to Aa3 with the company’s gas output having been whacked by the outage of its Yemen operations (MEES, 25 March). Chevron and Shell – hit by the Neutral Zone outage and “elevated leverage following the BG acquisition,” respectively – have their ratings lowered by one notch a piece. Both are now Aa2, one notch above Total. (CONTINUED - 474 WORDS)
