San Francisco: So the week ended on a high note with those jobs numbers. They didn’t do much for oil, though, which closed out the first week of February down (although it is still a fifth higher than its mid-January, mid-$20s low point).

Maybe traders fear that a healthy job market portends higher interest rates. Such anxiety isn’t mere paranoia: Projected oil demand growth this year rests overwhelmingly on emerging markets, which tend to sicken as the Fed raises rates.

Or perhaps it was last week’s set of official US oil inventory numbers, showing that stocks of gasoline jumped by about 22.4 million barrels in January. Now, gasoline storage tanks nearly always fill up a bit in January: Inventories have dropped that month in only two years since the Second World War. Still, you can’t help feeling a little nervous when the latest increase was the biggest for a January since 1993, when Hillary Clinton’s husband was just getting settled in at the Oval Office.

But maybe the truly unsettling news came from those who really have their fingers on the pulse of the market: oil producers.

Take Hess, which on Friday announced it had sold about $1 billion of new common stock, along with some other securities. Factor in the green shoe, and the new common equity adds up to be about 10 per cent of the current free-float. Hess duly slumped by as much as 11 per cent on Friday.

Hess isn’t the only exploration and production company tapping the market — Pioneer Natural Resources did a bigger offeringlast month. What is notable is that Hess doesn’t appear to be struggling right now. It ended 2015 with a net debt-to- capitalisation ratio in the mid teens, which is very good for the sector; rival Anadarko Petroleum’s ratio is 49 per cent, for example.

Granted, even with a 40 per cent cut to Hess’ capital expenditure budget this year, it looked set to have a funding shortfall, with the consensus forecast for free cash flow being negative $1.1 billion, according to numbers compiled by Bloomberg. Still, it might have relied more on asset sales and some extra borrowing to close that gap, rather than opting for hefty shareholder dilution after the stock has already taken such a beating.

The day before, ConocoPhillips also opted to take its licks, cutting its dividend by two thirds. Its shares have since fallen by almost 15 per cent. The dividend cut was certainly the prudent thing to do, what with Conoco’s debt-to-capitalisation ratio having jumped from 30 per cent to 38 per cent over the course of 2015.

Still, no executive likes telling shareholders they will be getting (a lot) less cash than they expected, especially as Conoco’s relatively high dividend has been the extra twist it offered investors since splitting to become a pure E&P company in 2012. Since then, shares in the old Conoco’s constituent parts have still held up better overall than those of integrated peers Exxon Mobil and Chevron. Risking that by capitulating on the dividend is a big step to take.

And Conoco wasn’t the only one cutting distributions last week. Mighty Exxon, with a much more pristine balance sheet, didn’t cut its dividend but suspended share buy-backs, which have been its calling card for years. The move may be driven partly by a desire to conserve firepower for acquisitions as fire sales take hold in the E&P sector. But with the risk of losing its triple-A credit rating now looming over the company, Exxon’s decision also has that distinctive sound of hatches being battened down.

All in all, when oil major managers decide it is more palatable to take a beating from shareholders than risk any further strain on their relationship with creditors, it points to one thing: They aren’t banking on oil to rally. Ryan Lance, Conoco’s chief executive, summed it up thusly:

While we don’t know how far commodity prices will fall, or the duration of the downturn, we believe it’s prudent to plan for lower prices for a longer period of time.

There are signs that this is now sinking into hitherto bullish analyst expectations. While the consensus estimate for where oil will be when 2016 draws to a close is still about 18 per cent higher than where futures trade, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, it has been slashed:

Capitulation does, of course, carry the seeds of recovery. Last week’s message from the industry, though, is not to hold your breath.