STEO

Crude oil price erosion over the past two years has resulted in declining earnings and cash flows for E&Ps, many of which have struggled to sustain their generous shareholder return program. Now, the EIA is forecasting a 26% plunge in the average 2026 price for WTI, to only $47.77/bbl. That portends steep cuts in capex and dividends for oil-focused producers. In today’s RBN blog, we calculate the oil price sensitivity of the 39 E&Ps we monitor and analyze their ability to weather the price dip.

Government forecasts are predicting a sharp drop in natural gas demand in the power sector in the coming decades based on an expectation that the renewable capacity build-out will accelerate and displace other sources. However, forecasts in the past decade have consistently and severely underestimated gas burn for power. In today’s RBN blog, we consider the pitfalls of forecasting gas consumption in a world often focused on pushing a renewables-heavy generation stack.

Crude oil production in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) has been riding high in recent months, still surfing the wave of deepwater and ultra-deepwater projects whose development started in the “good ole days” of $100/Bbl oil. Some incremental output is still being added, keeping GOM production levels high even as onshore oil output is declining in response to low crude prices and drilling cutbacks. But exploration and production companies (E&Ps) are cutting their spending on offshore projects, and unless oil prices start to rebound soon the Gulf too will see a leveling off—and after that, a gradual fall--in production. Today, we conclude our series on resilient production levels in the GOM with a look at recent cutbacks and what they may mean for Gulf oil output in 2016 and beyond.

The CME/NYMEX Henry Hub natural gas futures price averaged $2.64/MMBtu in September, the lowest level for any September since 2001, and it continues to hover at a similar low for October so far. Rig counts are down nearly 60% since December 2014. The market is on high alert for the first sign of production declines that might encourage higher prices – believing this to be a matter of sooner or later. Yet natural gas production has been hitting all-time records. Today we look at monthly natural gas production data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA).

U.S refiners have been processing a lot of crude so far this summer and utilization rates remain high. Crude production has leveled off and is expected by the Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) Short Term Energy Outlook to decline slightly during the second half of 2015. But the early summer market sentiment that drove crude prices up to $60/Bbl on the back of these fundamentals appears to have lost steam. Today we conclude our analysis of short term crude price prospects.