据世界石油5月30日伦敦报道，随着布伦特原油逼近每桶70美元，石油公司几十年来首次不再急于增加产量以追逐油价上涨。即使在位于美国能源繁荣中心的多产页岩二叠纪盆地，钻井公司也在抵制传统的兴衰循环。
由于华尔街投资者要求石油公司减少钻探开支，把更多的钱返还给股东，以及气候变化维权人士反对使用化石燃料，石油行业目前处境艰难。埃克森美孚就是这一趋势的典型代表。
上周石油行业发生的戏剧性事件只是为欧佩克+产油国提供了一个机会，让沙特阿拉伯和俄罗斯领导的联盟有更多的回旋余地来恢复自己的产量。由于非石油输出国组织的产量未能像许多人预期的那样快速反弹，或根据以往经验所担心的那样迅速反弹，欧佩克可能在6月1日的会议上继续增加供应。
股东们要求埃克森美孚减少钻探，专注于向投资者返还资金。CalSTRS首席投资官克里斯托弗·艾尔曼称:“我们确实看到公司正在走下坡路，除非他们改变和适应，否则无法在未来生存下去。现在他们不得不这样做。”
埃克森美孚并不是单独一家。荷兰皇家壳牌公司上周输掉了一场具有里程碑意义的官司，一家荷兰法院要求该公司在2030年之前大幅削减排放，这将需要减少石油产量。许多业内人士担心，其他地区将出现一波诉讼浪潮，西方石油巨头比占欧佩克产量很大一部分的国有石油公司更容易成为直接目标。
顾问公司Rapidan 能源集团总裁、前白宫官员鲍勃·麦克纳利表示:“我们看到，投资提高石油产量的行为正从污名化转变为犯罪化。”
虽然非欧佩克+产油国的石油产量确实正在从2020年的暴跌以及去年4月和5月的极度低迷水平中缓慢回升，但距离全面复苏还很远。总体而言，非欧佩克+国家的石油产量今年将增加62万桶/天，不到2020年130万桶/天的一半。国际能源署表示，今年剩余时间的供应增长预测“远不及”预期的需求增长。
2021年后，包括美国、巴西、加拿大和新产油国圭亚那在内的少数国家的石油产量可能会上升。但从英国到哥伦比亚、马来西亚和阿根廷，其他地方的产量将会下降。
高管和交易员表示，由于非欧佩克+的石油产量增幅低于全球石油需求，欧佩克将控制市场。这是与过去的重大突破，当时石油公司通过急于再次投资来应对油价上涨，提高非欧佩克国家的产量，并让沙特阿拉伯的阿卜杜勒阿齐兹·本·萨勒曼领导的部长们采取更加困难的平衡行动。
到目前为止，非欧佩克＋的石油产量没有增长，这在市场上并没有引起太大的反响。毕竟，新冠疫情还在继续限制全球石油需求。今年晚些时候到2022年可能会更加明显。到那时，预防新冠的疫苗接种活动可能会取得成果，世界将需要更多的石油。
当这种情况发生时，很大程度上将取决于欧佩克来填补这个缺口。这次复苏的一个信号是美国的钻井数:它在逐渐增加，但复苏速度比2008-09年油价大崩盘后要慢。页岩油公司坚持自己的承诺，通过股息向股东返还更多资金。在疫情之前，页岩油公司将70-90%的现金流用于进一步钻探，而现在他们将这一比例保持在50%左右。
其结果是，自2020年7月以来，美国原油产量一直维持在每天1100万桶左右的水平。美国和加拿大以外地区的前景更加黯淡:据贝克休斯公司的数据，截至4月底，北美以外地区的钻井平台数量为523台，低于一年前的水平，比两年前同期下降近40%。
裘寅 摘译自 世界石油
原文如下：
OPEC finds a rare opportunity as Wall Street, green activists hinder competition
For the first time in decades, oil companies aren’t rushing to increase production to chase rising oil prices as Brent crude approaches $70. Even in the Permian, the prolific shale basin at the center of the U.S. energy boom, drillers are resisting their traditional boom-and-bust cycle of spending.
The oil industry is on the ropes, constrained by Wall Street investors demanding that companies spend less on drilling and instead return more money to shareholders, and climate change activists pushing against fossil fuels. Exxon Mobil Corp. is paradigmatic of the trend.
The dramatic events in the industry last week only add to what is emerging as an opportunity for the producers of OPEC+, giving the coalition led by Saudi Arabia and Russia more room for maneuver to bring back their own production. As non-OPEC output fails to rebound as fast as many expected -- or feared based on past experience -- the cartel is likely to continue adding more supply when it meets on June 1.
Shareholders are asking Exxon to drill less and focus on returning money to investors. “They have been throwing money down the borehole like crazy,” Christopher Ailman, chief investment officer for CalSTRS. “We really saw that company just heading down the hole, not surviving into the future, unless they change and adapt. And now they have to.”
Exxon is unlikely to be alone. Royal Dutch Shell Plc lost a landmark legal battle last week when a Dutch court told it to cut emissions significantly by 2030 -- something that would require less oil production. Many in the industry fear a wave of lawsuits elsewhere, with western oil majors more immediate targets than the state-owned oil companies that make up much of OPEC production.
“We see a shift from stigmatization toward criminalization of investing in higher oil production,” said Bob McNally, president of consultant Rapidan Energy Group and a former White House official.
While it’s true that non-OPEC+ output is creeping back from the crash of 2020 -- and the ultra-depressed levels of April and May last year -- it’s far from a full recovery. Overall, non-OPEC+ output will grow this year by 620,000 barrels a day, less than half the 1.3 million barrels a day it fell in 2020. The supply growth forecast through the rest of this year “comes nowhere close to matching” the expected increase in demand, according to the International Energy Agency.
Beyond 2021, oil output is likely to rise in a handful of nations, including the U.S., Brazil, Canada and new oil-producer Guyana. But production will decline elsewhere, from the U.K. to Colombia, Malaysia and Argentina.
As non-OPEC+ production increases less than global oil demand, the cartel will be in control of the market, executives and traders said. It’s a major break with the past, when oil companies responded to higher prices by rushing to invest again, boosting non-OPEC output and leaving the ministers led by Saudi Arabia’s Abdulaziz bin Salman with a much more difficult balancing act.
So far, the lack of non-OPEC+ oil production growth isn’t registering much in the market. After all, the coronavirus pandemic continues to constrain global oil demand. It may be more noticeable later this year and into 2022. By then, vaccination campaigns against Covid-19 are likely to be bearing fruit, and the world will need more oil.
When that happens, it will be largely up to OPEC to plug the gap. One signal of how the recovery will be different this time is the U.S. drilling count: It is gradually increasing, but the recovery is slower than it was after the last big oil price crash in 2008-09. Shale companies are sticking to their commitment to return more money to shareholders via dividends. While before the pandemic shale companies re-used 70-90% of their cash flow into further drilling, they are now keeping that metric at around 50%.
The result is that U.S. crude production has flat-lined at around 11 million barrels a day since July 2020. Outside the U.S. and Canada, the outlook is even more somber: at the end of April, the ex-North America oil rig count stood at 523, lower than it was a year ago, and nearly 40% below the same month two years earlier, according to data from Baker Hughes Co.
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