U.S. oil output on brink of 'dramatic' decline, executive says

Reuters via Yahoo Finance ^ | Oct 6, 2015 | Dmitry Zhdannikov and Ron Bousso

[thackney]

Oil executives warned on Tuesday of a "dramatic" decline in U.S. production that could pave the way for a future spike in prices if fuel demand increases.

Delegates at the Oil and Money conference in London, an annual gathering of senior industry officials, said world oil prices were now too low to support U.S. shale oil output, the biggest addition to world production over the last decade.

"We are about to see a pretty dramatic decline in U.S. production growth," the former head of oil firm EOG Resources Mark Papa, told the conference.

Papa, now a partner at U.S. energy investment firm Riverstone Holdings LLC, said U.S. oil production would stall this month and begin to decline from early next year. He said the main reason for the decline would be a lack of bank financing for new shale developments.

Official data show that nationwide U.S. output has already begun to decline after reaching a peak of 9.6 million barrels per day (bpd) in April, although production in some big shale patches, including North Dakota, has held steady thus far. The Energy Information Administration forecast on Tuesday that output would reach a low of around 8.6 million bpd next year.

Until this year, U.S. oil output was growing at the fastest rate on record, adding around 1 million bpd of new supply each year thanks to the introduction of new drilling techniques that have released oil and gas from shale formations.

...{OPEC} changed strategy to protect market share against higher-cost producers, rather than cut output to prop up prices as it had done in the past....

The chief executive of Royal Dutch Shell Plc agreed, saying U.S. oil producers would struggle to refinance while prices remained so low, leading to lower output in future.

[thackney]

A change from + 1 MMBPD growth rate to -1 MMBPD in a bit over a year.

A negative 2 million barrel per day growth rate is a rather dramatic change.

[mountainlion]

The new world order or globalists what ever you call them are in full greed mode to jack up prices on everything they can and extract as much as they can before they destroy the world economy and raid as many assets as they can. Russia was trying to raise oil prices also.

[thackney]

Anybody that sells oil wants the price higher, private company or national.

But they want someone else to cut the supply to raise the price while they sell all they can produce.

[LS]

Yes, but while COMPANIES may go out of business---some only temporarily---the shale is still there, and often the equipment is still there, and it doesn't take much to gear up.

Not entirely comparable, but when the French gave up in Panama, they had done some very good work. It failed, but it showed us what not to do, where to direct the Canal, etc. So it was valuable research. All those costs have now been paid by others.

In short, there is always, always, always in capitalism the "threat of future competition," and as soon as the price goes up, it jumps in.

[olepap]

When the price goes back up, my dern wells will start pumping again. This is called supply and demand. Fracking tech is so awesome it has totally changed the market. Even if Saudi and Kuwait get shut down, we can make up the difference.

[expat2]

Yes, that was my point -- the executive said there was a dramatic change in growth rate, and that was not disputed. There is.
The point was that that is growth-rate and not actual production itself. People are easily confused over the difference between a quantity and the rate of change of that quantity. (There are changes in the production but they are not dramatic.)

[dangus]

The stupid, it hurts!

Production is down because prices are down. So falling production cannot cause a price surge!

[thackney]

The falling production will eventual cause a price rise.

Surge in price will normally also take a rise in demand at the same time.

There is a lag in time between the prices rising high enough to spur a significant growth in drilling followed by another lag in time to a significant increase in production.

That time lagged combined with demand growing enough at the same time will cause prices to surge.

[Sequoyah101]

Take a look for yourself. The turn started in June, 3 or 4 months later than some of us figured it would start.

http://www.eia.gov/petroleum/weekly/crude.cfm

Plot it from inception to date and it looks like cliff.

http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_sum_sndw_a_epc0_fpf_mbblpd_w.htm

[PTBAA]

Yeah, oil actually has intrinsic value unlike our fiat currency.