Oil companies begin restructuring. The sharp fall in oil prices is obliging oil companies to restructure their activities. Last week, the British BP group therefore announced that it would be restructuring its business activities, which will cost the group $1 billion, with several hundreds of jobs being lost. The group is also intending to reduce its investments from $1 billion to $2 billion next year. The US ConocoPhillips also finds itself in the same situation and it is reducing its investments by 20% to $13.5 billion in 2015. Similarly to these two companies, the other oil companies have also taken measures to reduce their spending and have revised their project portfolios downwards over the past few months. (IL)