据油田技术2月21日报道，Rystad能源公司的石油市场负责人约纳尔·托豪根（Bjornar Tonhaugen）表示：“一系列的悲观事件确实对油价造成沉重打击，导致油价大幅下跌，使近期的很大一部分涨幅化为泡影。”
最近，价格一直在上涨，在存在疫情情况下，价格已经达到如此高的水平，以至于当看跌消息来袭时，价格受到了沉重打击。目前，不仅交易员们都在寻求规避风险，炼油厂的停产也会减少需求，而且有迹象表明欧佩克+计划从4月份开始增加供应。
过去几天，德克萨斯州的石油产量大幅下降，局势不容乐观。炼油厂关闭的规模要大于原油供应的损失。当炼油厂减少加工原油时，意味着需求受到了冲击，因为原油是成品油进入零售市场之前的直接需求因素。
原油产量有可能下降，但如果炼油厂削减加工能力的幅度更大，这种不平衡自然会推低价格。
美国汽油价格相对于原油价格继续走强，在减少美国过剩的石油产品库存方面可能得到意想不到的帮助，为今年晚些时候可能非常紧张的供应市场铺平道路。
有报道称欧佩克计划从4月份开始增加产量，交易员们今天也纷纷调整价格水平。这是一种预料之中的发展，也被油价证明是合理的。自疫情开始以来，该联盟承担了大部分市场供应。当其它所有人都受益于它帮助平衡的价格水平时，该联盟还能克制供应多久?
欧佩克成员国开始享受其努力的成果，以比最乐观的市场观察人士所预期的更快的速度让油价重回健康水平。
事实上，在即将到来的欧佩克+会议上，当报告以官方信息出现时，油价可能进一步下跌。最引人注目的是沙特阿拉伯每天额外削减100万桶石油的决定是否将继续。如果额外减产取消的话，价格除了下跌别无选择。”
Rystad Energy页岩研究负责人Artem Abramov对美国石油生产发表了评论:“一开始，德克萨斯州的气温比往常略低，现在却变成了美国能源行业前所未有的冬季危机。尽管这种具有挑战性的环境可能会在未来几天持续下去，但我们相信，最糟糕的时期已经过去。该行业目前正在为快速复苏做准备，同时仍在评估极端天气造成的损害，并维持人员和作业的安全。虽然此次危机可能对全州范围内的石油和天然气生产产生长期影响,但我们需要记住,美国石油和天然气行业在极端天气或市场事件发生之后，有着异常良好的恢复速度的记录。”
德州米德兰的气温自2月10日以来就没有超过0摄氏度，并在2月14日至15日的晚上达到了多年来最低的零下18摄氏度。
二叠纪盆地的生产商和中游公司一直愿意承担潜在的水或液态烃冻结的风险，因为这类事件发生的可能性非常低，甚至可以忽略不计。这导致了该地区基础设施与北方各州截然不同——例如，与北达科他州或怀俄明州相比，德州的低压收集管道很少埋到地下。
油价上涨主要是由于炼油厂紧急关闭和安全燃除造成的，但在过去4-5天内，一些液化天然气终端和西德克萨斯的天然气加工厂的天然气燃除量也显著增加。估计，在过去三天里，二叠纪盆地的平均石油产量为200多万桶/天，但一些产量已经恢复。
假设天气从下周开始好转，预计在2月的最后一周和3月的第一周会迅速恢复。估计此次严寒危机对二叠纪石油产量的影响将在2月接近66万桶/天，在3月大约16万桶/天，不过4月将发生好转。
全国范围内的影响(包括德州、俄克拉何马州和新墨西哥州的减产)比二叠纪盆地单独的影响高出30-40%，但现在给出这个数字的最终估计还为时过早。二叠纪盆地2月份的平均石油产量可能仅为370万桶/天，低于去年疫情减产期间406万桶/天的最低记录。
在天然气方面，2月份损失了超过18亿立方英尺/天的二叠纪天然气预计3月份的产量将低约3亿立方英尺/天。这意味着二叠纪干气产量也将低于2020年减产期的最低水平。据估计，全国范围内二叠纪地区的干气受影响的产量将达到36亿立方英尺/天，而二叠纪地区的减产产量几乎都来自德克萨斯州(中部和北部地区)。”
王佳晶 摘译自 油田技术
原文如下：
Rystad Energy analysts comment on oil prices and US crude output
Rystad Energy’s Head of Oil Markets, Bjornar Tonhaugen, has commented on today's oil prices:
"A bearish cocktail of market events is really hitting prices hard this Friday, causing a steep drop that strips oil of a good part of it recent gains.
Prices have been inflated recently and for a good reason but they had reached so high - under a pandemic status quo – levels, that when the bearish news hit, they hit hard.
It’s not only that traders look to avert risk in the end of the week, it is also refinery outages that strip demand, and indications that OPEC+ is planning to increase its supply from April.
Oil production in Texas has seen significant volumes cut over the last days, but the net effect is surprisingly bearish.
Refinery shut-downs are larger volumetrically than oil supply losses, at least for some days. When refineries reduce processing crude that means demand is taking a hit, as for crude that is the immediate demand factor before the refined product reaches the retail market.
Production can fall as it may, but if refineries cut their processing capacity to an even larger extent, the imbalance naturally pushes prices lower.
Gasoline prices in the US continue to strengthen relative to crude oil prices, and the products markets can get an unexpected help in reducing the excess products inventories in the US – paving the way for potential very tight products markets later in the year.
Traders also rushed to correct price levels today as reports emerge that OPEC+ aims to open its production taps a bit more from April.
This is an expected development and justified by oil prices. For how long could the alliance – which has taken most of the market burden since the pandemic started – show restraint when everyone else benefits from the price levels it helped create?
OPEC members aim, and rightly so, to start enjoying the fruit of their efforts to bring healthy price levels back to the market, faster than even the most optimistic market observers would expect.
In fact the dip in price can dig in further when reports take an official character in the coming OPEC+ meeting. The elephant in the room is Saudi Arabia’s 1 million bpd extra cuts gift. If the gift is snatched back, prices cannot do else but decline."
Rystad Energy's Head of Shale Research, Artem Abramov, has commented on US oil production:
"What started as a modest colder-than-usual period in Texas has now turned into an unprecedented winter crisis for the US energy industry.
While this challenging environment is likely to persist in the next few days, we believe that the worst period is behind us. The industry is now preparing for a rapid recovery, while still evaluating the damage caused by the extreme weather and maintaining the safety of people and operations.
There is some talk that the current events could have a prolonged impact on statewide oil and gas production, however we need to remember that the US oil and gas industry has an exceptionally good track record for getting back up to speed quickly after extreme weather or market events – for instance after hurricanes or the Covid-related curtailments of 2020.
The air temperature in Midland, Texas has not risen above zero Celsius since 10 February and hit a multi-year low of -18C on the night of 14-15 February.
Permian producers and midstream companies were always willing to take the risk of potential water or liquid hydrocarbon freeze-offs, as the likelihood of such events was viewed as very low or negligible.
This resulted in a very different setup of a typical infrastructure project compared to northern states – for instance, low-pressure gathering pipelines are rarely buried into the ground in Texas as opposed to North Dakota or Wyoming.
Upstream flaring returned to the level seen in early February, when high flaring was driven by flowback start on several large Permian projects in areas with less developed gathering infrastructure, while infrastructure flaring reached levels not seen for many months.
It is unusual to see natural gas flaring from infrastructure facilities on the Gulf Coast reach a level comparable to upstream flaring.
We currently estimate that more than 2 million bpd of Permian oil production was offline on average in the past three days, but some volumes have already been restored.
Assuming the weather improved from next week, a rapid reactivation is anticipated throughout the final week of February and the first week of March.
Delayed activity will have a longer impact on production forecasts for February–April 2021, but similar to last year’s production curtailments, the downside for production today will result in stronger output tomorrow due to the shift in decline curves, occasional production flush events and a larger backlog of wells to be put on production in the future.
On an average monthly basis we estimate that the total winter crisis impact on Permian oil production will be close to 660 000 bpd in February and about 160 000 bpd in March, with the effect of delayed volumes resulting in the change of sign for the impact from April.
The nationwide impact (accounting for curtailments in the rest of Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico) is 30-40% higher than for the Permian alone, but it is too early to come up with a final estimate for this number.
Having said that, Permian oil production will likely average just 3.7 million bpd in February – lower than 4.06 million bpd bottom recorded during the Covid-19 curtailments last year.
On the gas side, we are losing more than 1.8 billion ft3/d of Permian gas in February (average for the whole month) and we expect March output to be about 300 million ft3/d lower than our previous base case.
This means that Permian dry gas output, too, is sent to levels lower than the curtailment period bottom from 2020. Nationwide dry gas impact is currently estimated at 3.6 billion ft3/d for the Permian, with nearly all ex-Permian curtailments coming from Texas (central and northern areas)."
