U.S. oil producers continue to fight the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic as crude oil prices continue to languish near $40 a barrel with little hope for a substantial or sustainable recovery shortly. 

West Texas Intermediate Crude Oil was trading above $70/b in September 2018. If WTI prices were to fall within $10 / b of that number at any point within the next 12 months, independent producers would have good reason to celebrate. 

WTI’s immediate month contract closed on September 23 at $39.93 / b, about 45% lower than the end of September 2018. With demand shaken by the COVID-19 crisis, prices have yet to recover, despite massive production cuts by U.S. companies – and it’s tough to be optimistic that things will improve soon… “$45 is not an easy price to live at; $35 makes it hard.

 It’s going to be an ongoing challenge,” said Duane Dickson, U.S. Oil, Gas & Chemicals sector leader for Deloitte LLP. “In the U.S., we’re probably returning to normal [demand] levels 18 months from now.” However, the WTI forward curve suggests a more pessimistic view. 

Current futures are trading below $45/b through 2023, and are only slightly better in March 2025. In its latest update, released on September 23, the Dallas Fed reported that two-thirds of 154 oil and gas managers surveyed said U.S. oil production had peaked, with just 34% disagreeing. “I’m expecting $45 to $50, and probably closer to $45 seems more realistic,” said Amarillo, Texas-based energy economist Karr Ingham when asked about his projection of WTI prices up in 2021. 

“Here’s hoping we get beyond COVID, and things get closer to normal. But we’re not moving towards that pre-COVID lifestyle very quickly at all right now.”  Judging by the comments on their second-quarter earnings calls, independent producers aren’t optimistic about the coming price hike either. 

Their comments indicated that they believed that the collapse in prices would continue into next year, and their approaches had changed accordingly.

After the producer discussed how they could generate free cash flow at $40/b or below, a clear sign was given that they were preparing for prolonged low prices. “We have a plan for next year to maintain [projected fourth-quarter 2020 production] and generate free cash flow of $ 40 for $ 3.4 billion in CAPEX next year,” EOG Resources Inc. Chairman and CEO William Thomas said. In commenting on second-quarter results, Pioneer Natural Resources Co. President and CEO Scott Sheffield said he expects prices to average around $50 / b for several years, with some years being closer to $40/b and others closer to $60/b. 

Apache Corp. President and CEO John Christmann said his company is looking at $50 / b as a starting point for 2021 but claimed the company would have the flexibility to cut the budget if prices remained below that level.  

Many oil industry veterans repeat the mantra that the only solution to low prices is low prices, or that supply cuts will eventually drive prices up. The supply had already been reduced in the first quarter, and prices hardly moved. With the return to more wells in the second quarter, production is on the rise in areas such as the Permian Basin. “Production in Texas and the U.S. has stopped declining and is increasing,” Ingham said. “All you have to do is restart some wells and complete some [drilled but uncompleted wells], and it goes up.”

In other words, low prices don’t stop low prices, either. This drop in price, observers say, will only be rectified by an increase in demand. Rising gasoline consumption by cars and a return to close to regular air travel will be the engine of a recovery in oil prices, but neither seems imminent.

“Signposts are miles were driven, and traffic patterns from cars and trucks. Also, the aerospace industry and its utilization. If those don’t start to come back, then this is probably where we are for a while,” Dickson said. According to IHS Markit, a resurgence of COVID-19 cases elsewhere in the world has also helped halt the recovery in demand, which had reached almost 90% of pre-COVID levels by the beginning of September. 

“It looks like demand has stalled because of this COVID uncertainty. There’s a lot of concern in Europe now,” Ingham said. In a note to clients on September 23, Goldman Sachs analysts said the market continued to lack confidence in near-term demand and was seeking clarification regarding post-election politics and the growth in demand for oil in the region long term. 

marketdaily.com/?p=227(opens in a new tab)

“Longer-term demand also remains in focus,” the analysts noted, pointing to a recent forecast from B.P. p.l.c. that indicates U.S. oil demand may have peaked in 2019. “We continue to assume demand growth, though at deceleration. However, we believe lower long lead time project spending and slower short-cycle shale growth will offset the slowdown in demand,” the bank analysts wrote. 

If prices do start to come back, they may rise quickly. Morningstar estimated that a relatively small number of shale oil wells would be profitable in its September oil markets even if prices push back over $50/b. “According to conventional wisdom, the efficiency gains that producers have generated since the 2014 downturn has made it possible for shale firms to drill profitable wells, even when crude price Margaery low.

On the contrary, we think only half of the wells drilled since the beginning of 2017 would be profitable today at $55/bbl,” the firm said.  From a somewhat doomed prospect, a large number of executives told the Dallas Fed that they believe U.S. plant counts would increase significantly before prices hit $ 55 / b. Forty-three percent of those surveyed said they expected the rig count would rise substantially if WTI prices were between $ 51 / b and $ 55 / b, while 29% said they thought it would take costs between $ 56 / bbl and $ 60 / bbl. “$60 oil is stimulative,” Ingham said.

 “But I don’t see anything approaching $60. I hope I’m wrong.” While oil companies would like to see $ 60 / billion in oil returns, there is concern that another protracted price drop could be the death knell for a large number of independents. “We looked at negative cash flows and technical insolvency and linked it to oil price and we went with $35,” Dickson said. “At that price, upstream is not making money and it’s not clear what the remedy is.”

London returned to the rankings of financial centers amid a pandemic boom in productivity and posted the most substantial rise in rating among the world’s 20 largest financial centers in the past six months. The strong performance of its financial services sector amidst the COVID-19 pandemic offset earlier Brexit concerns, according to the latest Global Financial Centres Index shows.

In collaboration with China Development Institute, the index, compiled by the Z / Yen Group, is published twice a year, in March and September. The most recent survey covers 111 major global financial centers and assesses five areas: business environment, human capital, infrastructure, financial industry development, and reputation. The latest index, its 28th installment, shows that 14 of the world’s 20 largest financial centers have seen price increases since March. London recorded the most massive rating increase, 24 points. While still in second place in the world rankings, London now ranks only 4 points behind world leader New York, which has posted a rating gain of only 1 point since March, says the Z / Yen Group. 

According to the Z / Yen Group, several factors, including increased productivity from working from home and less travel, London’s resilient infrastructure, and government support, were behind the U.K. capital’s strong performance, according to Z/Yen Group. The ratings of all 10 of the world’s leading financial centers have risen over the past six months, reversing recent downward trends. Only 12 of the next 40 centers in the ranking experienced a rating increase, while 27 experienced a rating decline. Overall, the mean rating of centers in the index dropped more than 41 points, or 6.25%, since the March 27 GFCI installment, Z / Yen Group, said.

 This could indicate a more general decline in confidence in global financial centers due to uncertainty about the economic impact of COVID-19 and other disruptive factors such as international trade tensions, Mike Wardle, head of indices for Z / Yen Group said during an index presentation on September 25. Geopolitical and local unrest also contributed to the lack of confidence, according to Z/Yen Group. However, the growth in the rating among the world’s top 10 centers indicates greater confidence in them despite the impact of the pandemic, Wardle said.

London’s rebound Unlike its performance in the index’s last two installments, GFCI 26 in September 2019 and GFCI 27 in March 2020, London outperformed mainland European rivals such as Frankfurt, Paris, and Amsterdam. London recorded the largest rating gain among the top 20 financial centers in Western Europe, while both Frankfurt and Paris have seen a 5-point drop and have lost three positions in the global rankings since March. According to Michael Mainelli, executive chairman of the Z / Yen Group, the volatility of the ratings in the GFCI is not uncommon. Still, London’s 24-point rise is material, according to Michael Mainelli, executive chairman of Z/Yen Group. A few factors may have contributed to the increase, one of which has been the resilience of infrastructure in London during the COVID-19 blockades, he said at the GFCI 28 index presentation. 

At the start of the pandemic, there were doubts about London’s infrastructure, especially in broadband, at the onset of the pandemic. Still, it functioned “brilliantly” when most of the city’s financial sector employees were sent home to work, he said. Another primary rating driver was the increase in productivity of London’s economic workforce as city workers gained an extra 1-2 hours per day, which they had previously lost on commuting, Mainelli said. “Some of the cost bases in financial services dropped, and all of this combined with a huge government injection of cash,” he said. However, any of these factors could change once the world has yet to see the full effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, he said. Remote work Given the shift to working from home during the epidemic, Z / Yen studied working patterns in their latest GFCI survey. 

The group found a significant difference in staff sentiment towards remote working in Western Europe and other regions. While in most areas, respondents plan to spend 30% to 40% of their time in the future, that share is nearly 60% in Western Europe. Perhaps because COVID-19 has not had quite the same impact in Asia, that region seems to be looking more to get back to where it was in 2019, Mainelli said. Overall, a 20% shift of work from the home office is expected, and there is a powerful feeling that working from home is here to stay, certainly in financial services,” Mainelli said. “We surveyed approximately 135 chief executives last month, and 84% of them expected working from home to increase,” he said, referring to the total number. On the flip side, time spent with customers in the regions remains about 20%, unchanged from pre-COVID-19 times, he said.

Strategy is said to be destiny.

“Successful and unsuccessful strategies determine the fate of a company. But when strategy determines fate, fate has ways of asserting itself and limiting strategy. “

Organizations and companies have had to rethink and rethink their business strategy planning in what appears to be a blink of an eye. The tension between the changing strategy and other factors is not a brainer; what made it complex is the current economic climate and the impact of a pandemic on corporate strategy constraints.

The limits of the pandemic have essentially reduced the degree of “instability” or degrees of freedom for organizations to be strategic, agile and nimble in their change of course.

Canada has 1.78 million SMEs, many of them in the services sector, it is not surprising that these businesses are hard hit by COVID-19 and the ripple effect of closures. , social distancing and economic contraction. Many SMEs do not survive the first 10 years of activity; in fact, Statistics Canada notes that SMEs that cross the 10-year mark represent 42.9% in the service industry. Therefore, is everything lost and do small and medium business owners simply give up? Are the chances too high?

Definitely not. With every crisis there are opportunities.

How could you ask yourself if there can be an opportunity when my bottom line is shrinking and my business model is no longer solid and effective?

Let’s assume the stay-at-home policy is much longer than six months …

• What else can you do differently to keep your business alive?
• What do you sell and how do you sell it?
• Do you use different technology and tools to get the most out of your services and products?
• Is your marketing strategy shifting to new platforms, and if so are you tracking your data to inform your strategy?
• Are you changing your marketing methodology to align with data and opportunities?
• Is your marketing aligned in a way to drive profit and sales?
• Who are your competitors and what can you learn from them?
• Does collaborating to complete what you offer to make more sense than competing in this environment and allows you to expand the scope of your brand and your customer base?
• Can you really take a step back and look at your business objectively, where it fits in the current market, and evaluate it objectively at arm’s length?
• It has been said if you do the same thing over and over again you will get the identical outcome.

In a climate of chaos, change is the only constant.

Change and re-invent management, business strategy planning and, strategic implementation are all fundamental leadership skills that are absolutely critical to the success and sustainability of any organization.

So it’s no surprise that many small and medium-sized businesses may have trouble figuring out what’s next? How do I change my strategy? What are my choices and opportunities I currently have?

And to be honest, these are tough questions to answer when you are a leader who has heavily invested in a business that you have built through hard work and doing what you have always considered the best.

I would suggest that companies might want to consider reaching out to a business strategy advisor to get an objective view of their landscape, a new perspective on their business model, a coach to help them overcome perhaps the biggest business crisis they’ve ever had. been faced. These are all valuable investments as they will help leaders and organizations not only reevaluate what they are doing and how they do it but will help leaders maintain their confidence in leading change, making business decisions thoughtful and intelligent, and develop new strategies that define the stage of the organization’s next phase.

Because whether we want to acknowledge it or not, after COVID-19 there will be a next phase with a new economy and a new way of doing business after COVID-19.

How we as leaders re-plan our business strategy, how we are using the crisis as an opportunity to rethink our business models, our offering, our marketing, our strategic partnership, and our support systems will impact and determine whether your business does this. going to do. are among the 50% that survive into the next few years.

SEO is essential to the ultimate success of your business. To ensure your SEO strategy’s success, it should be designed around and pay attention to enhance the process. This article will help you find out how to develop and implement a successful SEO content marketing strategy.

What is content marketing?

Content marketing freely creates and shares valuable, high-quality information that your target audience will find useful.

According to Yoast, “Content marketing includes all marketing activities that focus on creating and sharing information. […] The idea of content marketing is that sharing valuable information is a great way to attract an audience and build a brand. ” 

Creating high-quality content is a critical part of developing an effective and comprehensive SEO content marketing strategy for your business. Quality content allows your website to rank organically higher on SERP pages, that’s right. But one of the other significant benefits of content marketing is that you become a trusted resource for your target audience and an opinion leader in your expertise.

To be considered a trustworthy source and opinion leader, you need to start thinking beyond research and rankings. Optimizing content as part of your SEO content marketing strategy means coming up with content that serves a more critical purpose than making your site rank higher in the SERPs. Meanwhile, it can be easy to get overwhelmed by the rush to produce as much content as possible to drive more traffic to your site, creating content for content creation is of no use to anyone.

The SEO content marketing strategy should focus on creating content related to the key search terms your audience is looking for. On the other hand, creating content that appeals and resonates with your target audience, your website will naturally start ranking higher in the SERPs.

Hence, the best method to start creating this kind of great content is to create a list of the most important keywords relevant to your industry and business. There you can use these keywords for:

• Identify possible topics that relate to your company and products or services.
• Determine which of these topics are mostly related to your audience or what you want to emphasize.
• Utilize a keyword ranking program or do your own Google research to identify keywords that have the potential to drive the most traffic to your website.

Here’s an example search engine report that helps you identify topics and keywords that match your target audience:

Once you determine which keywords to include in your content, this will help you keep your SEO content marketing strategy in the right picture and make sure you create high-performing content that adds value to your target audience and site.

And true enough, it’s essential to use your keywords to structure your content, it’s equally important not to over-saturate your content with those keywords. This is called “keyword stuffing” and can hurt your SEO rankings rather than help you. Search engines value high-quality content that helps people find the information they need and are looking for. That’s why you should use keywords naturally in all of your content.

Creating SEO Friendly Content

Here are some valuable and practical tips for creating SEO friendly content. In conjunction with the above information, you can create optimized content that appeals to both search engines and your target audience.

• Increase brand authority with guest posting. Meanwhile, guest posting can be a great way to add quality backlinks to your content. Guest posting can also help build credibility for your brand. You can research guest posting opportunities by searching for sites and blogs with a target audience similar to your business and a broad social audience. Collaborating with these types of firms could provide the opportunity to expand your SEO content marketing strategy by sharing and expanding your content across different marketing channels.

• Regardless of the guest posting options, part of creating SEO-friendly content means optimizing it to be shared across various marketing channels. You don’t have to post to every marketing channel; focus on the media that your target audience uses the most.

• Reuse your content. In addition to going back through your blog archives and updating old posts (which you should do regularly), reusing your content can also mean identifying positions that didn’t work and sharing them on some of you. Other marketing channels. Such as social media. Media or by presenting them in an email newsletter. That way, you can figure out if this is a topic that is not relevant to your target audience or whether you need to start using other marketing channels to engage with your target audience.

• It is also essential to create high-quality images to sustain your optimized content. Our attention span continues to decline every year. To keep your target audience engaged, you can create custom images, images, and videos to go along with your blog and website. This will not also break your longer content; it also gives you the option of incorporating some of your keywords into the alt textual content.

• Contact a company that provides professional SEO services for content marketing. Suppose the time comes that you need assistance creating the best SEO content marketing strategy for your business and have the budget to do so. In that case, you might want to consider hiring a company that provides professional SEO content marketing services.

People today are earning online with the advent of 21st-century technology. It is undeniable that technology has completely transformed the way we live our lives today. Whether it’s business, education, medicine, finance, or any other industry, technology helps any sector thrive. You might be surprised to know that unemployed people can use their true potential to get rid of all the problems they usually face during their unemployment period. Of all the technological wonders, the Internet is the most utilized one used by ordinary people. So you need to know that you can use the Internet to generate income.

The Internet that you primarily use to watch your favorite TV shows, book movie tickets, or order food and drinks, can also be used to keep your pocket full during the time you are no longer employed. Here in this article, we’ve listed several ways technology can help the unemployed stay healthy. Let’s get started now.

Finance is arguably the biggest challenge facing jobless people, especially when they don’t have enough savings to fall back on. Managing all expenses, including food, gas, gas, rent, and others, can be a big challenge if you don’t have an income source. Now the compelling question arises as to how technology can help with this. Hence, you can make money online from the comfort of your own home as there are many online portals offering work from home. So, you can search for the available position on these sites and apply for the place that you think aligns your skills and passion.

Using Fintech to organize funds

Gone are the days when you had to queue up to apply for a loan or even deposit your money. Nowadays, with the rise of fintech companies, you can easily use for debt with just a few clicks from your computer without working at the big banks. Therefore, if you are having financial difficulties, you can look for a reputable direct lender in the UK who can provide you with guaranteed loans for the unemployed. However, the lender can check your other financial aspects, such as credit score or credit utilization ratio, to determine repayment potential and other operational expenses.

Acquire professional skills

If you cannot find a new job, you should use it to your advantage and improve the skills that can help you in your professional growth and career. And true enough, you acquire various online courses for which you have to pay a reasonable fee. The best thing about these classes is that if you are worried or need to go somewhere urgent, you won’t have to miss the class. You can easily download the last video of the course and then watch it once you’re free again.

Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing is one of the best sources for making passive income. The catch of this marketing method is quite simple and straightforward, i.e., you promote other companies’ products or services through your marketing efforts. The help you exert to the company gain a potential client will be compensated with a commission and salary you deserve set by the company. To get started with affiliate marketing now, you first need to determine the niche you feel comfortable in and help the business attract customers. In this manner, you must use social media platforms intelligently and increase online visibility to expand your audience and reach.

You are selling your stuff online.

Finally, you can also make a lot of money by selling many things that you no longer use. For example, if you have clothes that you no longer use or a gadget like an iPod, you can sell them online at the best possible value. All the money you will make will be beneficial during the unemployment period when you need the cash during dire times.

The bottom line, these were the different ways you can use technology to help fill your wallet during unemployment and even help you find a new job if you use it the right way.