On Monday, I discussed how OPEC abandoned Saudi Oil Minister Naimi’s market share strategy during H2 last year.
Naimi’s strategy had stopped the necessary investment being made to properly exploit the new US shale discoveries. But this changed as the OPEC/non-OPEC countries began to talk prices up to $50/bbl. As CNN reported last week:
“Cash is pouring into the Permian, lured by a unique geology that allows frackers to hit multiple layers of oil as they drill into the ground, making it lucrative to drill in the Permian even in today’s low prices.”
Private equity poured $20bn into the US shale industry in Q1
Major oil companies were also active, with ExxonMobil spending $5.6bn in February
US oil/product inventories have already risen by 54 million barrels since January last year and are, like OECD inventories, at record levels. And yet now, OPEC and Russia have decided to double down on their failing strategy by extending their output quotas to March 2018, in order to try and maintain a $50/bbl floor price. US shale producers couldn’t have hoped for better news. As the chart shows:
US inventories would be even higher if the US wasn’t already exporting nearly 5 million barrels/day of oil products
It is also exporting 500 kb/d of oil since President Obama lifted the ban in December 2015
Nobody seems to pay much attention to this dramatic about-turn as they instead obsess on weekly inventory data
But these exports are now taking the fight to OPEC and Russia in some of their core markets around the world
None of this would have happened if Naimi’s policy had continued. Producers could not have raised the necessary capital with prices below $30/bbl. But now they have spent the capital, cash-flow has become their key metric.
The second chart confirms the turnaround that has taken place across the US shale landscape, as the oil rig count has doubled over the past year. Drilling takes between 6 – 9 months to show results in terms of oil production, and so the real surge is only just now beginning. Equally important, as the Financial Times reports, is that today’s horizontal wells are far more productive:
