U.S. drillers scrambling to thwart OPEC threat

OPEC and lower global oil prices delivered a one-two punch to the drillers in North Dakota and Texas who brought the U.S. one of the biggest booms in the history of the global oil industry.

Companies are leaning on new techniques and technology to get more oil out of every well they drill, and furiously cutting costs in an effort to keep U.S. oil competitive with much lower-cost oil flowing out of the Middle East, Russia and elsewhere.

“Everybody gets a little more imaginative, because they need to,” says Hans-Christian Freitag, vice president of technology for the drilling services company Baker Hughes.

Spurred by rising global oil prices U.S. drillers learned to tap crude trapped in shale starting in the middle of last decade and brought about a surprising boom that made the U.S. the biggest oil and gas producer in the world. The increase alone in daily U.S. production since 2008 — nearly 4.5 million barrels per day — is more than any OPEC country produces other than Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Minister: OPEC Won’t Bear Burden of Propping Up Oil Price
http://www.rigzone.com/news/oil_gas/a/137788/Saudi_Minister_OPEC_Wont_Bear_Burden_of_Propping_Up_Oil_Price/?all=HG2

OPEC will not take sole responsibility for propping up the oil price, Saudi Arabia’s oil minister said on Sunday, signalling the world’s top petroleum exporter is determined to ride out a market slump that has roughly halved prices since last June.

Last November, Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries kingpin Saudi Arabia persuaded members to keep production unchanged to defend market share.

The move accelerated an already sharp oil price drop from peaks last year of more than $100 per barrel that was precipitated by an oversupply of crude and weakening demand.

Since the oil price collapse, top OPEC exporter Saudi Arabia has said it wants non-OPEC producers to cooperate with the group. But Saudi oil minister Ali al-Naimi said on Sunday that plan had so far not worked.

“Today the situation is hard. We tried, we held meetings and we did not succeed because countries (outside OPEC) were insisting that OPEC carry the burden and we refuse that OPEC bears the responsibility,” Naimi told reporters on the sidelines of an energy conference in Riyadh.

“The production of OPEC is 30 percent of the market, 70 percent from non-OPEC ... everybody is supposed to participate if we want to improve prices.”

Earlier, OPEC governor Mohammed al-Madi said it would be hard for oil to reach $100-$120 per barrel.

Saudi Arabia doesn’t get it: There is no American ‘energy policy’
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/saudi-arabia-extends-oil-soaked-olive-branch-but-u-s—frackers-aren-t-having-it-144630464.html

...As reported here, Saudi Arabia was prepared to make production cuts in late 2014 but wasn’t able to get assurances from other producers to do the same. Saudi Arabia is determined not to repeat its experience of the mid-1980s, when it cut production as oil prices fell but lost market share when other OPEC nations didn’t follow suit. Today, the Saudi’s aren’t just worried about production from other members of the oil cartel, including Iran’s potential reentry to global markets, but U.S. frackers and Russia as well (among myriad other economic and geopolitical considerations).

To be clear, Saudi Arabia isn’t just thinking about U.S. producers but al-Naimi’s comments hint at the Kingdom’s apparent misunderstanding of how America’s economy works.

Earlier this month, OPEC’s Secretary General stated the obvious - that falling oil prices are hurting U.S. shale producers. On Friday, Baker Hughes reported the U.S. rig count fell for a 15th-straight week and is now at the lowest level since 2011. Many U.S. producers have cut jobs as crude prices tumbled more than 50% from 2014 highs and cut planned 2015 drilling budgets by $50 billion vs. a year ago, The WSJ reports....

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