The kneejerk answer is probably not, which is why investors have not reacted enthusiastically to an idea floated by the investment bank that Origin Energy and Santos should combine to cut costs and survive the blizzard of ultra-low oil and gas prices.
Before any reader or aggrieved executive from the companies involved protest about the failure comment it is a description used to make the point that neither company has posted too many wins lately, with both widely seen as losers in the current market.
Tumbling profits are one guide to the problems at Santos and Origin, as was last year's emergency capital raising by both companies to help retire debt amassed during the construction of LNG processing plants in Queensland.
The net result has been a remarkably uniform share-price collapse by both, with Santos shares down by 64% from their 12-month high of $7.99 to last sales on Friday at $2.87, and Origin's 65% fall from $11.77 to $4.05.
What investors are saying in those near-identical falls is that both companies are seen as suffering from an identical disease: debt-induced corporate paralysis where they are condemned to spend the next few years generating cash to pay their banks.
Growth is very much off the agenda for Santos and Origin. Dividends, if they can be maintained, will be miserly while cost-cutting, job-shedding and survival will be management's priority.
It could be better, according to the clever analysts at the investment bank Credit Suisse who claim that a merger of the two troubled companies makes admirable sense - though whether anyone is listening remains to be seen.
On the stock market neither company reacted positively. Origin shares opened at $4.05 last Wednesday, the morning that the Credit Suisse proposal was first reported by Bloomberg and The Australian newspaper, and closed the week at the same price, $4.05.
Santos did worse, opening on Wednesday at $2.96 and sliding away to $2.87.
A fall in the price of Brent crude oil to a 12-year low of $US28.94 on Friday will not have helped, which means that Origin holding its own might not have been a bad reaction.
Whatever the short-term effect on the stock market to the Credit Suisse suggestion, it is something that might develop traction over the next few weeks - though more because of political and domestic energy-market issues than corporate pressure.
At a business level both Origin and Santos have now started production at the Queensland LNG projects in which they have an interest, delivering cargoes into a market that is overfull, to customers who would prefer to not take delivery (and might already be on-selling) at a price which is presumably at a discount to cost.
Credit Suisse reckons that a merger could see an integration of the LNG businesses with one or more of the LNG trains at the adjoining plants on Curtis Island near Gladstone being mothballed to ease pressure on customers and the wider LNG market.
Gas not chilled and exported could be redirected into the domestic market where a significant shortfall in supply is emerging which means higher costs for business and household consumers and political pressure on governments as local gas is shipped overseas.
So far, so good - but that's before encountering the problems of corporate ego in both companies where every two senior executives would suddenly find there's only one job.
The Credit Suisse suggestion is that the best way to handle the situation is as a
"merger of equals" with Santos and Origin shareholders owning 50% each of the new business, which it has named "Soritos" and for the utilities business of Origin (gas and electricity distribution) be sold or floated off as a separate business.
Big cost savings might be achieved through a merger, with Credit Suisse claiming there was up to $3 billion on offer, a cost reduction which might be enough to turn two losers into a winner.
On a market value basis Santos and Origin are remarkably similar: $7 billion for Origin and $5 billion for Santos, and would be almost identical if Origin offloaded its utilities division.
Credit Suisse reckons that an open mindset could see huge benefits with the "political and industrial logic compelling to get a deal done".
Interestingly, a Santos spokesman contacted by The Australian declined to directly address the Credit Suisse report, claiming the business was in a good position to navigate its way through a period of low oil prices, to which The Slug says: "Hmmm, really?"
Origin had nothing to say, which is worth an even louder: "Hmmmmm, is that so?"
Two companies. Two denials (or at least a denial and a refusal to comment). Low prices. Falling profits. Annoyed shareholders, and a long economic winter ahead of low (or no) profits - it's enough to say that a deal really is compelling, and might even be in at embryonic stage.
