Production

A round-up of data on shale drillers shows they’re sticking to their pledge to cut costs, return money to shareholders and reduce debt. If they stay the course, it would validate the OPEC+ alliance’s high-stakes wager that it can curb output and drive crude prices higher without unleashing an onslaught of supply from U.S. rivals.

How the fragmented U.S. shale industry will respond to increased incentives to drill has become a crucial question for traders and industry watchers across the world.

The OPEC member’s output has fallen to around 1 million barrels daily in the wake of Waha Oil Co.’s decision to shut a key pipeline taking crude to Libya's largest oil port, Es Sider.

With demand still fragile, shale companies “are wise not to jump the gun and overproduce during the recovery year,” UAE Energy Minister Suhail Al Mazrouei said in an interview, adding they “need to be careful not to flood the market.”

The U.S. Energy Information Administration said that recent crude price increases and rig additions will help production in the Lower 48 states begin to rise in the second quarter of this year, with total output nearing 11.5 MMbpd in 2022.

In a year that brought the U.S. shale industry to its knees, the Brazilian state-run giant pumped an all-time-high 2.3 million barrels a day of crude, according to a statement Thursday. That’s about the same as OPEC member Kuwait.

“I have a hard time seeing the need for U.S. producers over the next several years to get back to double-digit growth,” Devon Energy CEO Rick Muncrief said in an interview. “For this management team, if we really think about 2021, let’s keep it flat.”

“I really don’t see much increase in the Permian basin or the U.S. shale over the next several years,” said Scott Sheffield, chief executive officer of Pioneer Natural Resources Co.

National Iranian South Oil Co. and Iranian Offshore Oil Co. will sign deals with domestic contractors covering onshore fields in Bushehr, Fars, Khuzestan, and Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad provinces, National Iranian Oil Co. said in a statement.

Venezuela has managed to defy sweeping U.S. sanctions against state-owned producer PDVSA and keep shipping some crude abroad, mainly to China. But Washington has intensified the crackdown on companies that break the restrictions, and PDVSA has struggled to sell its barrels in Asia.

The RRC reports that from November 2019 to October 2020, total Texas reported production was 1.5 billion barrels of crude oil and 10.4 trillion cubic feet of total gas.

“To restore our output, that we’ve reduced a lot, the price range of $45 to $55 a barrel is the most optimal,” Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak told reporters in Moscow. “Otherwise we’ll never restore production, others will restore it.”

Algeria’s Energy Minister Abdelmajid Attar, who holds OPEC’s rotating presidency, said there was no guarantee the group and its allies would raise crude production by 2 million barrels a day by April, even after an agreement earlier this month to reach that level in steps.

Government-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. picked Occidental to explore for oil and natural gas at a block in the desert along the UAE’s border with Oman, ADNOC said Wednesday in a statement. The block is adjacent to an exploration area that ADNOC awarded to Occidental last year.

Total has been selling assets to curb debt as plunging oil and gas prices sap earnings, including oil field assets in Brunei and the UK, as well as a stake in a renewables subsidiary in France.

Discussions have focused on a gradual relaxation of output cuts over several months, and according to one delegate there could be a one-month delay before the tapering starts.

Market-watchers have been expecting OPEC+ to agree on a three-month delay -- and if the group doesn’t deliver prices will suffer. At stake also is the credibility of the cartel whose actions have underpinned the market since the spectacular oil crash earlier this year.

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