You are a new financial analyst at American Assets & Liabilities (AAL) company and have been assigned to the energy industry. You are assigned with examining the financial reports of the five largest energy companies traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). These consist of five companies traditionally focused, in particular, on the production and manufacture of oil and gas products: Exxon Mobil (XOM), Royal Dutch Shell (RDS), Chevron (CVX), Total S.A. (TOT), and British Petroleum (BP). Upon cursory review of the companies’ financials, you discover that they reported some strange results in the second quarter of 2020.

After a quick search of the financial news, you discover an April 20, 2020 headline that Oil prices dip below zero. The Guardian reports that U.S crude oil prices per barrel dropped from $18 to -$38. [1] Decreased demand during the coronavirus shutdowns led to an oversupply of crude oil. On the same day, CNBC reports that the “unprecedented wipeout” of oil prices caused the stock market to plunge, with both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 both dropping more than 2.6% on the same day.[2]

This news of a plunging stock market does not explain why the April results are so different for companies in the same industry. A continued search shows that The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) published several articles about Big Oil in the second half of June 2020. On June 15, 2020, the WSJ wrote about the British Petroleum $17.5 billion write-down of its oil assets due to a downward revision in long-term oil price assumptions.[3] Three more articles are dated June 30, 2020. The first article paints a gloomy scenario for the future of Big Oil because of large write downs in the industry.[4] The second article reports that Royal Dutch Shell will be taking a $22 billion write down, similar to the BP write down earlier in the month.[5] Finally, the last article details the resistance by Exxon Mobil to write-downs assets and reveals that a complaint about XOM’s impairment accounting has been filed with the SEC under the whistleblower program.[6]

Required:

• Determine and communicate the appropriate accounting for inventory write-downs under U.S. GAAP (using the Accounting Standards Codification)
• Determine and communicate the appropriate accounting for inventory write-downs under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS)
• Discuss how these ‘Big 5’ energy companies reported the effect of the oil prices dropping below $0.