OPEC report shows July's global oil output was two million barrels per day short of demand

This week we're going to review OPEC's August Oil Market Report (covering July OPEC & global oil data). As you’ll see, it shows there was a large shortfall in the amount of oil produced in July, a story that doesn’t seem to be being told elsewhere, as even the analysts don’t read the entire report (100+ pages)

Half million barrel per day global oil surplus persisted in February

Since oil pricing, and hence the industry's plans for new oil field exploitation in the US, is still largely dependent on what OPEC does, we'll start by looking at the new OPEC Monthly Oil Market Report for March, which covers February OPEC & global data.

Despite OPEC Cuts, Global Glut Grows A Million Barrels a Day

Last week saw the release of the OPEC Monthly Oil Market Report for February (pdf), which covers global oil data for January. It's the production data in that report, not the IEA estimates that we looked at last week, that will determine, by OPEC's own standards, whether their members have complied with the production cuts they have agreed to or not.

OPEC cuts their oil output but keeps on drilling

Oil continued to trade in a narrow range last week as news that OPEC had achieved 90% compliance to their agreed to production cuts offset the news that US oil supplies saw their 2nd largest weekly jump in the EIA's records.

Oil Production Cuts Could Result in 600,000 Barrel Per Day Global Deficit in First Half of 2017

We finally have some details on the secondary agreement to cut oil production that came out of that meeting of Russia and other non-OPEC oil producers last Saturday. That agreement is projected to reduce production of the 11 signatories by 558,000 barrels a day, on top of the 1.2 million barrels a day in cuts already agreed to by OPEC, thus amounting to a total reduction of about 1.8% of global oil supply.

OPEC agrees to cut production back to March levels, oil prices spike 14%

At their meeting in Vienna on Wednesday, the member nations of OPEC agreed to cut their oil production by 4.5% for a period to run 6 months, effective January 1st. The amount of oil output each member is expected to forgo is generally based on their October production, although for some countries, such as Iran, the baseline for the output cut has been adjusted for special factors. Libya and Nigeria, whose recent production has been disrupted by civil conflict, will be exempt from the cuts.

A Russian-OPEC deal, more inventory records, and why our oil output has held up

An agreement between Russia and a handful of OPEC countries to freeze oil production pretty much dominated most of the news out of the oil patch this past week.

Record Oil and Gasoline Inventory; Gas Use Down...& a Russian-OPEC Cartel?

A number of on again, off again, stories that Russia was planning to meet with the members of the OPEC cartel to negotiate production cuts drove oil prices higher last week, but even now it's still not clear if there was any actual communication between any leaders of the countries to bring about such a meeting

Beyond Peak Credit

I was invited by Manfrommiddletown to stray from my usual Blog home at European Tribune and post on the subject of Credit Default Swaps.

I find it hard to post on CDS without reference to the wider context, and in fact the reference here yesterday to the proposed Gas OPEC gives me the perfect excuse, since I have in recent days had a direct and intimate exposure to that initiative.

I have just returned to Scotland from ten days in Teheran, and was asked - by the head of the Iranian Majlis (Parliament) Energy Commission among others, to propose my ideas as to a possible structure for such a global gas market initiative.

For those who don't know, I was once upon a time a Director of the International Petroleum Exchange (now ICE Futures Europe), and since then have been busy in the area where markets and the Internet converge.

OPEC