Well, we’ve mentioned that this would happen a few times, here and elsewhere. And it has. Jazz Shaw wrote back in December.
If you’ve been watching the oil market half as closely as Wall Street in general you’ve seen something rather remarkable happening this week. At the end of last month, OPEC finally decided that they were getting beaten badly enough with scandalously low oil prices and decided to jointly cut production. Since oil is always a significantly volatile global market, the system responded almost immediately, with oil climbing back up above the $50 per barrel mark for the first time in a couple of years. That helps out some of the member nations while not being high enough to significantly spike gas prices at the pump back in America.
So why not trim the flow back even further and bump those prices higher still? One OPEC spokesperson was extremely open about their strategy. The low prices have largely pushed U.S. shale oil production into low gear. It’s simply not profitable to produce when the price is down in the forties or even thirties. But if the price gets up to a few bucks above sixty dollars per barrel it will be rich times in the shale fields again and we’ll bust the market open, leading to another round of depressed prices. The Nigerian petroleum minister was quite clear about it in an interview this week. (Bloomberg)
Later on, he refers to it as not an evil conspiracy but just business, which is kind of true. It’s a would-be monopoly trying to set the price of a commodity, instead of letting the market do its thing. And you know something, it never works for long. Something always changes things. Here too.
Last Thursday, John Sexton wrote this.
OPEC, the oil cartel really cares about the world. That’s the message of a new monthly report issued Thursday. OPEC says what the world needs now is a bit less supply on the global oil market. In particular, they would really appreciate it if the United States would stop producing so much damn oil…for the good of the world of course. From CNN Money:
The report said that balancing the market would “require the collective efforts of all oil producers” and should be done “not only for the benefit of the individual countries, but also for the general prosperity of the world economy.”
OPEC said that one producer in particular is to blame: The U.S., where shale producers have continued to ramp up their drilling despite lower crude prices.
The increased production has undermined OPEC’s efforts to keep prices between $50 and $60 per barrel.
But the OPEC effort didn’t work for long. Prices are back below $50 a barrel now and thanks to increased efficiency, U.S. producers can still make money at those prices. Now OPEC has to decide whether to extend the production cuts into the latter half of the year or simply give up on the effort. Nitesh Shah, a commodity strategist at ETF Securities, says OPEC’s strategy has been a bust. He writes, “repeating the same strategy for another six months will do little to shore up oil prices.” “OPEC nations have given up market share and have barely reaped any price gains,” he adds.
OPEC could try even deeper production cuts but OPEC members won’t like that. So OPEC is left begging the U.S. to give them a break for the good of the world economy. We could do that, but here’s another thought: Let’s continue taking their market share and reducing their control over the world’s energy market.
Heh! Yep, we could do that, but why would we? Our people like to work and make money for their families, and they’re damned good at it, as well. Our country is designed for cheap energy, that’s why we have been a bit sluggish since the seventies. We are also free marketeers, buccaneers, really, who always find a way to make money while providing a better service, cheaper.
It’s our way in geopolitics as well, it’s how we destroyed the Soviet Union. And for anybody who still harbors the risible notion that Putin wanted Trump as President, well, this is certainly not in Russia’s interest either. Interesting, isn’t it, that American fracking that only last year needed oil prices of ~$60 per barrel to be profitable, is now profitable in the mid to high $30 dollar range.
The free market: What can’t it do?
