Industry adjusts 1992 E and P budgets

This paper reports that a midyear update of Salomon Bros. survey of the petroleum industry's 1992 exploration and production budgets pinpoints the ways operators are adjusting outlays to match the times. The New York financial firm's latest tally shows: Operators have made deep cuts in their 1992 US and Canadian E and P budgets since yearend 1991. Moderate increases budgeted earlier for E and P outside North America are intact. Many companies substantially underspent their budgets in first half 1992. In Salomon Bros. Largest survey---247 companies responded---operators the they were budgeting a 3.2% year to year decline in their 1992 worldwide E and P spending, compared with a 1.3% increase planned for 1992 in December 1991. The decline in spending falls entirely in North America. Preliminary indications suggest that 1993 E and P spending will be relatively flat in the US and flat to moderately increased in Canada. Elsewhere, spending should continue to rise steadily in 1993, Salomon Bros. The. Budgets exclude producing property purchases and merger or acquisition of other companies when possible