US Shale (And US Gulf Of Mexico) Too Much For OPEC -- Bloomberg -- April 23, 2017

I was going to leave this as an update at an earlier post, but it's such an important article, I've brought it up here as a stand-alone post.

Oilprice.com may be confused, but Bloomberg certainly is not, calling it like it is -- simply put, US shale is eating Saudi Arabia's lunch.

OPEC's four-month experiment with production curbs has failed. More worryingly, the strength of shale's rebound suggests that OPEC faces a long-term struggle against this new source of supply in an industry where technological advances are the norm and today's niche play becomes the next decade's global standard.

Total U.S. crude production has risen by more than 550,000 barrels a day in the 20 weeks since OPEC decided to cut output, according to weekly Department of Energy data. Much of that increase has come from shale formations. If this rate of growth -- a little under 30,000 barrels a day of new supply each week -- continues, U.S. output could top its recent peak of 9.61 million barrels a day shortly after OPEC meets on May 25 to consider its next move.

That is bad enough for OPEC producers, but the picture just gets worse for them each month. The DoE publishes a monthly outlook and its views on domestic production are evolving rapidly -- and not in a way that suits OPEC.

Its latest forecast, published on April 11, pegs U.S. oil production at 9.24 million barrels a day by July. That is half a million barrels a day higher than it was forecasting for that month in November 2016, just before OPEC decided to restore output restraint. Its outlook for December 2017 has increased by 700,000 barrels a day over the same period.

I'll Remember You, Slim Whitman