Shale Oil 2.0
Oil Market ReportThe recently observed uptick in oil prices has given many US shale oil producers the opportunity to expand production. Latest forecasts from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) see US oil production rising by 10 percent year-on-year in 2017, and 3.3 percent in 2018. Nevertheless, shale oil exploration and production (E&P) companies face a number of potential ‘bumps in road that could hinder their progress and recovery in the near-to-medium term. Besides higher borrowing costs, shale oil producers also face the possibility of constrained capacity leading to inflated operating costs. One area where costs are likely to rise is related to oilfield services, which includes the cost of rigs, equipment and personnel.
Temporary Outages Helping Balance Oil Markets
Oil Market ReportBrent oil prices surged to an average of $45 per barrel (pb) in Q2 2016, up 35 percent quarter-on-quarter, due to a combination of developments. Firstly, oil outages from Canada and Nigeria resulted in at least 1.5 mbpd being temporarily unavailable to global oil markets. Secondly, slowing US shale oil output resulted in year-on-year growth in US crude oil imports being consistently positive for the first time in six years. ‘Brexit had a relatively modest impact on oil markets, with Brent slipping back slightly below $50pb immediately following the UKs decision to leave the European Union. The effects over the longer term are less clear, with a worse-case scenario being a global contagion effect resulting in increased volatility in global oil and financial markets.
