IEA’s Birol sees $60/bl as oil price cap

摘要

A crude price of $60/bl could trigger a rebound in US shale oil production and represent a new cap on crude prices, IEA executive director Fatih Birol told Argus in Beijing today. Resilient US producers have managed to finance and hedge shale oil output despite crude prices of around $40/bl, but the IEA sees a decline in production at this price. “We expect, at these price levels, more than a 500,000 b/d decline in US shale output this year. But if the price sometime soon goes to $60/bl we may well see output rebound — and so $60/bl may come to represent a cap on oil prices,” Birol said.