More from Per Oilprice.com Tuesday February 23, 2016
"OPEC’s Secretary-General spoke at the conference [the IHS CERAWeek conference in Houston this week], where much of the oil world closely listened to his comments regarding OPEC’s recent production freeze deal announced with Russia. Secretary General Abdalla Salem El-Badri said that the freeze was the “first step,” which could be followed by “other steps in the future.” He also said that everyone will wait and see how the results of the freeze over the course of the next few months.
"OPEC recognizes role of shale. El-Badri largely admitted OPEC’s waning influence due to the rise of U.S. shale. "Shale oil in the United States, I don’t know how we are going to live together," he said in Houston on Feb. 22. “Any increase in price, shale will come immediately and cover any reduction.”
"The IEA’s report mostly backed up that sentiment. Although the Paris-based energy agency predicted shale would decline substantially in 2016 and 2017, the IEA also said that shale would bring back 1.3 mb/d of liquids production by the end of the decade.
"Low prices now, but high prices in the future? But El-Badri also said that the large cuts to upstream investment today will lead to “a very high price” in the future. “The concern is no investment now, no supply in the future. It’s as simple as that,” El-Badri said. “If there’s no supply coming to the market, prices will go up.”
"That is another conclusion in which the IEA and OPEC are in agreement. The IEA said basically the same thing in its Medium Term Oil Market Report, warning that the dearth of investment today could create the conditions for a price spike in the future. With most of the industry scaling-back exploration, the potential for a sharp rise in prices will be just “as de-stabilising as the sharp oil price fall has proved to be,” the IEA wrote. "
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