Phillips 66 continued to expand in 2019, extending its network of pipelines. It announced an $8 billion joint petrochemical venture with Chevron and Qatar Petroleum, and pushed for an offshore export terminal in the Gulf of Mexico. The Houston-based refiner was not hiding its ambition: it wanted to go all-in on the U.S. shale boom. But relatively weak prices in 2019 helped push the company’s adjusted earnings down by about 34% from last year's figure, to $3.7 billion. Across the oil sector, 2020 started with a jolt. The January price spike gave way to the coronavirus-fueled price crash, which quickly led refineries to cut back production.