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Oil Price War May Benefit Both US Shale And Saudi Arabia

Myles Udland February 23, 2015 Oil prices have been volatile of late, but a number of banks and commenters have said that oil prices are going lower. In its half-year earnings release on Monday, Australian mining giant told the market exactly why: In response to weaker prices, [BHP] will reduce its Onshore US operated rig count from 26 at period end to 16 by the end of the 2015 financial year. The majority of the revised drilling program will be focused on our liquids rich Black Hawk acreage with activity in the Permian and Hawkville limited to the retention of...

Myles Udland February 23, 2015Manufacturing activity in Texas is plunging and the crash in oil prices is to blame. The Dallas Fed's February manufacturing index fell to -11.2, down from -4.4 in January and well below the -4 reading that was expected. Expectations were for the headline index to come in at -4. In the last couple months, this report has been in focus as business owners in Texas take stock of how the decline in oil prices is weighing on that state's economy. And Monday's report was no different. One business executive in the primary metal manufacturing sector said...

Shane Ferro February. 17, 2015Gary Shilling thinks the price of oil is going way lower. The economist and financial analyst wrote an op-ed for Bloomberg View discussing the various reasons why he thinks the price could get down to $10-20 per barrel. Basically, supply keeps increasing while demand is shrinking. Here's an excerpt that pretty clearly lays it out: U.S. crude oil production is forecast to rise by 300,000 barrels a day during the next year from 9.1 million now. Sure, the drilling rig count is falling, but it’s the inefficient rigs that are being idled, not the horizontal rigs...

NEW YORK, Feb. 20 (UPI) -- Oil prices were treading water early in the Friday session as markets weighed latest inventory data and production figures from the United States. The price for West Texas Intermediate crude oil, the U.S. benchmark, was relatively unchanged from the previous session to trade at $51.10 for the March contract. WTI has recovered from late January lows below $45 per barrel and have rallied for most of February.

(Reuters) - Oil rose for a third straight session on Monday as OPEC forecast greater demand for crude this year than previously thought and projected less supply from countries outside the group. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries forecast demand for its oil will average 29.21 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2015, up 430,000 bpd from its previous forecast, while slashing its outlook for crude supply growth in non-OPEC countries. Benchmark Brent oil futures LCOc1 were up 35 cents, or half a percent, at $58.15 a barrel by 11:40 a.m. EST, after revisiting Friday's one-week peak of $59.06.

(Reuters) - Collapsing crude prices are confronting scores of smaller U.S. oil producers with the grim choice of either shutting older high-cost wells or burning through cash in the hope of riding out the downturn. As oil prices fell by more than half over the last six months from more than $100 per barrel, the U.S. oil industry responded by slowing its blistering growth and dialing back expansion plans. Now, with U.S. crude around $46 a barrel, operators are already closing some small old wells, known as strippers, and tens of thousands of similar wells are on the verge of...

Myles Udland January 26, 2015 The crash in oil prices is weighing on Texas' economy. The January Texas manufacturing survey from the Dallas Fed was a huge miss, with the general business activity reading coming in at -4.4. Expectations were for the composite index to come in at 3.0, down from 4.1 in December. Factory activity in the region was flat in January. The big takeaway, however, is that as with last month, numerous business executives expressed concerns over how the crash in crude oil prices would affect results. One executive in the fabricated metal manufacturing sector said "multiple oil-related...

Myles UdlandJanuary 25, 2015 Good evening! The weekend is over in New York and near 7:05 pm ET, the price of West Texas Intermediate crude oil was down another 2.5% to $44.45 a barrel.(snip)(snip)

Myles UdlandJanuary 15, 2015Good morning! It is a new week and crude oil is making new lows.(snip)(snip)

Stefano Pozzebon and Reuters January 5, 2015 U.S. crude and Brent futures dropped to fresh 5-1/2-year lows on Monday as worries about a surplus of global supplies amid weak demand continued to drag on oil markets. At 11.30am GMT (6.30am ET) Brent was trading at $55.35 a barrel, losing 2%. Previously, it temporally slipped as low as $55.16, its the lowest values since May 2009. Here is a chart of how it looked at 11.30am GMT (6.30am ET): Brent 5.1.15 11.30am Investing.com U.S. crude slid as low as $51.40 a barrel, also its lowest since May 2009, and at 11.35am...

Tyler Durden 01/02/2015 Reading headlines and social media commentary in last night's thin trading, one could have been excused for thinking the collapse of global crude oil prices was over and a new renaissance had begun as 'watchers' proclaimed WTI's spurt above $55 (for a nanosecond) as indicative of the lows being in. However, just hours later, following weak European data (and a recognition of massively offside speculative positioning), WTI has collapsed over $3 from the highs and is testing towards a $51 handle.(snip)

Crude oil production from U.S. wells is poised to approach a 42-year record next year as drillers ignore the recent decline in price pointing them in the opposite direction. U.S. energy producers plan to pump more crude in 2015 as declining equipment costs and enhanced drilling techniques more than offset the collapse in oil markets, said Troy Eckard, whose Eckard Global owns stakes in more than 260 North Dakota shale wells. Oil companies, while trimming 2015 budgets to cope with the lowest crude prices in five years, are also shifting their focus to their most-prolific, lowest-cost fields, which means extracting...

North Dakota is poised to impose the strictest oil standards in its history on Tuesday, requiring every barrel of crude to be filtered for dangerous types of natural gas in an effort to make crude-by-rail transport safer. The new requirements come as federal, state and local officials grapple with how best to ensure the safe transport of North Dakota's crude oil, which has been linked to a string of fiery crude-by-rail explosions, including one last year in Quebec that killed 47 people. Governor Jack Dalrymple and the two other members of the North Dakota Industrial Commission (NDIC) are taking the...

Energy Transport: New data show fast-rising rail shipments from North Dakota's Bakken shale formation and the need for a safer alternative to rail — like the Keystone XL pipeline. In his post-election press conference, the president noted in justifying his continual kicking of the Keystone XL oil drum down the road that "while this debate about Canadian oil has been raging ... we've seen some of the biggest increases in American oil production and natural gas production in our history." That increase is due in large part to oil recovered from the Bakken shale formation centered on North Dakota. So...

(Reuters) - Benchmark Brent crude dropped to a two-year low on Thursday, falling for a sixth straight session as increasing supply and signs of weakening demand countered worries that conflicts in the Middle East could curb output. ... Brent for October was down 66 cents at $97.38 a barrel at 11:38 a.m. EDT (1538 GMT) It fell as low as $96.72, its weakest since July 2012. U.S. crude was up 35 cents at $92.17 a barrel, turning higher after sliding to $90.43, its lowest since May 2013. Brent hit a high above $115 in June as Islamist insurgents swept across...

Several hundred Chrysler minivans are stuck indefinitely on a piece of prime Detroit real estate, unable to be transported across America. The reason? The fossil fuel boom in Canada and the United States is hogging much of the available rail capacity needed to transport the vans. Citing a report by the Associated Press, the Windsor Star reports that railway capacity – which is normally transport new vehicles – is being eaten up by deliveries of oil from both the Alberta Oil Sands and the Bakken shale formation in the United States. According to the AP, just 9,500 railway carloads of...

The shovel-ready pipeline from Canada gets yet another clean bill of health as yet another State Department review says it will have negligible environmental impact, unlike the crude-carrying trains that are replacing it. President Obama promised in the State of the Union that 2014, his sixth year in office, would be a "year of action" on jobs, unlike the first five that saw the labor force participation rate sink to its lowest level in decades. In his weekly radio address on Jan. 18, he said he wanted "to work with Congress this year on proven ways to create jobs, like...

January 30th, 2014 01:21 PM ET 38 minutes ago First lady says girls aren’t interested when President gets his ‘butt kicked’ Posted by CNN White House Producer Kevin Liptak Washington (CNN) - The end of 2013 may have been rough going for President Barack Obama, but political strife over Obamacare’s botched rollout and NSA spying didn’t cross over into his family life, according to the first lady. When Obama got his “butt kicked,” his daughters didn’t offer too much sympathy, Michelle Obama told Ryan Seacrest Thursday in a radio interview. “Oh dad, tough luck,” was Sasha and Malia’s response, the...

Hollywood comedian Will Ferrell says first lady Michelle Obama surprised him once by saying, “Bitch, where’s my money?”