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ConocoPhillips Chairman and CEO Ryan Lance provided a company update during the Bartlesville Regional Chamber of Commerce’s virtual forum on Wednesday.

Lance said it is another tough year for energy. He said the second quarter of the year after the coronavirus pandemic was probably the lowest point for the company. Demand was off by approximately 17 barrels a day, which roughly represents 17-percent of the total global demand in the company's business.

Lance added that global GDP is off by five-percent. For those younger than the age of 75, Lance said this is something that hasn’t been seen since World War II. He said company's like ConocoPhillips saw 50 to 70-percent of their revenue drop in one month's time.

For ConocoPhillips, Lance said that loss is pretty significant when you are investing a lot of capital in the business in an effort to grow and develop the company. He said they also saw prices drop so low that they had to curtail production, which was a first for him. This was done in order to balance out the reduction in the demand.

At the peak of the pandemic, Lance said ConocoPhillips shut in approximately 400,000 barrels a day of production. However, Lance said they knew prices would recover, so they were willing to shut the barrels in and produce the barrels at a later date in a better market.

Lance said ConocoPhillips believes recovery efforts will continue through the third and fourth quarters. He said they may not return to pre-coronavirus demand levels until 2022, which means supply is going to have to moderate itself in order to match that demand and facilitate the rise in commodity prices over the course of the next year and a half.

ConocoPhillips entered the downturn in a strong financial position. Lance said the company had approximately $14-billion in liquidity. He said there was some concern that ConocoPhillips would have to burn through quite a bit of the liquidity as they went through the course of the year, but that was not the case.

Lance said ConocoPhillips was able to purchase acreage and buy out a competitor in Canada. He said the company's strong financial position allowed them to go out and add to the company's resource phase.

Volatility is anticipated to continue, and Lance said ConocoPhillips will continue to deal with that volatility. Lance said they want to preserve the productive capacity of the company. He said they have not gone through layoffs as many in their industry have.