So far, investors do not trust oil companies as they cannot forgive them for not being prepared to oil market collapse four years ago, Bloomberg reports.

Neither $25 billion buyback program, nor higher earnings returned investors confidence in oil giants. S&P 500 Energy Index gained 7% this year, which is lower than broader S&P 500 that grew by 8%. Price of oil traded in the US increased by 22% during this period.

Experts from consulting firm Rystad assume that investors only now started seeing free cash flow gains in oil corporations, and they will be closely watching how companies will spend extra money.

Free cash flow in international oil companies will grow this year more than twice to the record $175 billion. Then it will increase again in 2019 to $200 billion and will stay at this level for a least two more years, experts of Rystad Energy estimate.