Bad news for Canadian Oil and Gold companies

Just take a look at our Oil and Metals sectors and you will want to weep.  How many of the companies we see today will still be around this time next year?  I have a couple of oil and gas stocks I had bought for around $9 and right now both are sitting at below $3.

Ron Bousso writing at Reuters:
More than $150 bln  of oil projects face the axe in 2015

* A fifth of projects at risk with oil at $80/barrel- Rystad
* Oil prices drop puts economics of some projects in doubt
* Canadian oil sands, LNG projects at high risk of delays
* Some North Sea, Arctic and Gulf of Mexico fields on hold

 Global oil and gas exploration projects worth more than $150 billion are likely to be put on hold next year as plunging oil prices render them uneconomic, data shows, potentially curbing supplies by the end of the decade.

As big oil fields that were discovered decades ago begin to deplete, oil companies are trying to access more complex and hard to reach fields located in some cases deep under sea level. But at the same time, the cost of production has risen sharply given the rising cost of raw materials and the need for expensive new technology to reach the oil.

Now the outlook for onshore and offshore developments - from the Barents Sea to the Gulf or Mexico - looks as uncertain as the price of oil, which has plunged by 40 percent in the last five months to around $70 a barrel.

Next year companies will make final investment decisions (FIDs) on a total of 800 oil and gas projects worth $500 billion and totalling nearly 60 billion barrels of oil equivalent, according to data from Norwegian consultancy Rystad Energy.

But with analysts forecasting oil to average $82.50 a barrel next year, around one third of the spending, or a fifth of the volume, is unlikely to be approved, head of analysis at Rystad Energy Per Magnus Nysveen said.

"At $70 a barrel, half of the overall volumes are at risk," he said.....