One Of The World's Biggest Consulting Firms Reveals How Companies Are Thinking About The Oil Crash

As fourth quarter earnings season continues, we're getting more insight into how the oil crash is affecting companies, and a new research note from Goldman Sachs highlights executive commentary on the energy market from earnings announcements and conference calls.

Accenture is one of the largest consulting firms in the world and works with some of the largest energy companies in the world including Baker Hughes and BP.

On the company's December 18 earnings call, Accenture CEO Pierre Nanterme said:

"I believe that these big organizations in energy, oil and gas are just watching the situation. It has been very volatile these last few weeks. And I guess our clients and these companies are waiting a bit to understand whether there's going to be some form of stabilization. And when you have some form of stabilization, you can start executing your strategy. But as we speak, we've not seen any different pattern with our clients. And I would characterize my dialogue as being in a watching mode, not panicking."

Since then, oil prices have continued their wild ride, mostly in a downward direction.

Here's more from Nanterme in his comments during the earnings call:

"We are monitoring carefully the macroeconomic environment the significant fold in global oil prices since last June, [it] could boost growth in the global economy but also create a more challenging environment for companies in the energy sector and certainly contributes to greater uncertainty and volatility in the marketplace."

On Tuesday, Baker Hughes said that in the first quarter of 2015, the average rig count in the US is expected to decline 15% from the fourth quarter of last year. Baker Hughes also announced job cuts, an announcement that followed a job cut announcement from oil services giant Schlumberger last Thursday.

And on Tuesday night, Australian mining giant BHP announced it would shut down 40% of its US shale oil wells over the next year.