Marcellus-Utica gas processing builds, despite oil price slump

J. Stell, Contributing Editor Oil prices have fallen by more than 50% since the June 2014 high of $107.20/bbl, prompting many upstream and oilfield-services companies to slash their 2015 budgets. BHP Billiton plans to reduce its number of drilling rigs by 40%. BP plans to cut mid-level manager positions in the company’s production, refining and corporate sectors in the US and UK, in addition to its recent $43 B of global divestments. Shell Oil, Apache Corp. and ConocoPhillips also plan to reduce their staff. In the oilfield-services sector, Schlumberger and Baker Hughes will cut a combined 16,000 employees, and FMC Technologies is projected to cut 2,000 employees to reduce costs. In the mi