Tag: OPEC

May 10, 2019

Oil market watchers hoping to discern why Opec has cancelled its customary April meeting might take a clue from the poker expression of playing cards close to one’s chest. While potential strains over the Opec+ production agreement and uncertainty over […]

May 2, 2019

Venezuela’s political and humanitarian crisis remains fluid with President Nicolas Maduro clinging to power amid protests led by opposition leader Juan Guaido. Street protests are expected to continue Thursday with Guaido telling thousands of supporters yesterday that “there’s no turning […]

April 26, 2019

President Donald Trump on Friday said he “called up” OPEC and told the producer group to take action to bring down fuel costs, making a dubious claim that gasoline prices are already falling. Crude futures extended earlier losses following Trump’s […]

April 10, 2019

Oil supplies from OPEC sank by half a million barrels a day in March, hitting a four-year low, as Saudi Arabia continued to slash output and Venezuela’s production plunged amid ongoing economic crisis. The monthly production decline amounts to roughly […]

April 10, 2019

Gasoline prices have really spiked these last few weeks and will keep on rising because the United States does not have sufficient refinery capacity to make the gasoline and diesel we need. And the refineries we have are old and […]

March 29, 2019

OPEC kingpin Saudi Arabia will continue to ignore President Donald Trump’s tolerance threshold for rising oil prices, one analyst told CNBC on Friday, putting Riyadh on a “collision course” with Washington. Trump delivered his second warning to OPEC this year […]

March 28, 2019

President Donald Trump told OPEC on Thursday that its members should start pumping more oil, marking his second warning to the producer group this year as crude prices continue to rise. Trump’s latest tweet comes as OPEC and a group […]

March 20, 2019

Interestingly, there are still peak oil advocates who think that we’ve reached peak oil now, despite the fact that shale oil production is still growing, OPEC+ has about 1.5 mb/d of production shut-in due to weak prices, while Venezuela, Libya, […]

March 18, 2019

A couple of interesting studies have come across my desk in recent days that merit noting. Taken together, they paint a picture of a domestic shale oil and gas industry that is relatively healthy and will only grow healthier throughout […]

March 15, 2019

The world’s appetite for oil and gasoline is growing faster than many forecasters expected, putting Brent crude on pace to top $70 a barrel, Goldman Sachs says. The investment bank says oil demand grew by 1.55 million barrels per day […]

March 11, 2019

The shale drillers behind booming U.S. oil and natural gas output have survived a bevy of challenges in recent years, from a historic oil price downturn to an effort by OPEC to wash them out of the market with a […]

March 11, 2019

The sanctioning of two OPEC members by the Trump administration has caused some ripples in the oil market, but not the type of shortages or pain for consumers that might have occurred. One big reason is that U.S. production continues […]

February 28, 2019

Oil producing group OPEC is responsible for salvaging the entire oil industry with its deal to curb output, OPEC’s secretary general told CNBC, but the U.S. shale revolution has helped to prevent “major, major energy chaos” in the world. “OPEC […]

February 27, 2019

Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said OPEC is taking a measured approach to supply cuts, directly responding to comments from President Donald Trump earlier in the week telling the oil producing body to “relax.” “We are taking it easy,” he […]

February 27, 2019

When the price of oil was over $100 a barrel, I was often derided for suggesting that level was a) elevated and b) unsustainable. (I was also derided in 2006 for suggesting in Forbes the price might go as low […]

February 15, 2019

Analysts say oil prices are approaching breakout levels, and the final day of trading this week will offer clues about whether crude futures can keep rallying. Brent crude on Friday topped $65 a barrel for the first time this year, […]

February 12, 2019

OPEC fell just short of its production goal in January, as a fresh round of output cuts from the 14-nation producer group got under way. The slight miss comes as the group once again cut its outlook for global oil […]

February 5, 2019

During just six months crude oil prices ripped higher by about 20 percent, plunged more than 40 percent and snapped back 25 percent, an intense volatility that analysts warn could be the new normal in the oil market. December was […]

February 1, 2019

Bearish voices are loudest these days. Several big houses have downgraded their 2019 price forecasts: Goldman Sachs has gone from $70/bl to $62.50/bl, citing a surge in production, particularly from US shale. Opec may be less influential than it used […]

January 25, 2019

A couple years ago, I asked a friend with ties to the Venezuelan émigré community if there was a betting pool on the date the Venezuelan regime would fall and he said most Venezuelans have shortened index fingers from tapping […]