Receivables

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2019

As of December 31, 2019, 36% of our net trade receivables were from customers in the United States. As of December 31, 2018, 43% of our net trade receivables were from customers in the United States. No other country or single customer accounted for more than 10% of our net trade receivables at these dates.

We routinely monitor the financial stability of our customers and employ an extensive process to evaluate the collectability of outstanding receivables. This process, which involves a high degree of judgment utilizing significant assumptions, includes analysis of our customers’ historical time to pay, financial condition and various financial metrics, debt structure, credit agency ratings, and production profile, as well as political and economic factors in countries of operations and other customer-specific factors.

The table below presents a rollforward of our global allowance for bad debts for 2017, 2018 and 2019.



Millions of dollars	Balance at Beginning of Period		Provision (a)		Other (b)			Balance at End of Period (c)
Year ended December 31, 2017	$	175	$	566	$	(16	)	$	725
Year ended December 31, 2018	725		57		(44		)	738
Year ended December 31, 2019	738		50		(12		)	776

(a) Represents increases to allowance for bad debts charged to costs and expenses, net of recoveries.

(b) Includes write-offs, balance sheet reclassifications, and other activity.

(c) The allowance for bad debts in all years is primarily comprised of a full reserve against accounts receivable with our primary customer in Venezuela.