世界石油产量增长引擎即将放缓

据美国彭博新闻社报道，在这个迫切需要更多石油的世界，位于美国西得克萨斯州和新墨西哥州东南部尘土飞扬的地区是可以提供更多石油的地方之一。但即便原油价格每桶超过100美元，二叠纪盆地和美国其他页岩盆地的生产商仍在踩刹车。

在过去十年的大部分时间里，美国二叠纪盆地是一部无法停止的钻井机器。二叠纪盆地庞大、低成本的石油储量，帮助美国转变为世界上举足轻重的石油供应国，一旦油价飙升，美国石油生产商就会增加产量；一旦油价暴跌，他们就会停止生产。由于页岩生产商积累了大量几周内就能开发的井，原油价格上涨肯定会引发水力压裂热潮，这将有助于补充全球库存，为油价降温。

但这次不是。

爆发军事冲突以后，原油价格飙升至13年来的最高水平。美国每个州的汽油价格第一次超过了每加仑4美元。4月份，纽约的航空煤油价格创下新高。然而，美国的页岩勘探商们并没有表现出要出手相助的迹象。他们的业务模式已经发生了根本变化，在抑制增长、通过派息和回购将现金转移给投资者的压力下，他们的业务模式被重塑。通货膨胀也造成了损失。预计今年美国石油产量的增幅将不到2018年的一半，当时原油价格每桶约为65美元。 这对消费者来说意味着更多痛苦，摩根大通预计，到今年8月份，美国汽油价格将达到每加仑6.20美元。

标普全球北美上游油气业务副总裁拉乌尔·勒布朗表示：“美国石油和天然气供应体系仍然非常强大，但在任何给定价格下，石油产量增长都将放缓。”“如果没有页岩股东提供的补贴，消费者可能预计将支付更高的价格。”

生产美国一半以上原油的上市独立石油公司现在把大约三分之一的现金流返还给投资者。根据公布的统计数据，这意味着页岩需要一个新的价格下限，从以前的每桶40美元-50美元提高到60美元-70美元，才能在美国主要石油远景区进行广泛的钻探作业。把股东利益置于生产之上的压力，是石油行业在疫情暴发前不惜一切代价增长模式的直接结果。德勤会计师事务所称，这种增长模式在过去十年导致近3000亿美元的现金消耗。预测人士表示，尽管今年页岩产量会上升以及原油价格会上涨，但战争影响的石油产量额外增长将微乎其微。

根据标普全球、雷斯塔能源公司、彭博新能源财经、Enverus和美国能源信息署这五大预测机构的平均值，美国今年的原油产量将日增大约90万桶。相比之下，2018年日增190万桶。今年的增产计划是在爆发军事冲突之前制定的，分析人士预计，明年美国原油的日增产幅度仅为大约80万桶，最终将使美国的原油产量恢复到疫情前的水平。在油田方面，运营商说预测者目前的估计甚至可能过于乐观。与此同时，几个欧佩克产油国正在努力完成产量配额，导致全球原油市场日益吃紧。

华尔街并不是页岩阵痛期的唯一来源。研究和数据公司Enverus公布的统计数据显示，全球供应链危机在美国二叠纪盆地尤为严重，二叠纪盆地将占美国今年产量增长的80%。  

二叠纪盆地钻井公司Surge能源公司首席执行官关林华（音译）在接受采访时说，设备供应中断意味着，如果一家公司想要增加产量，现在从钻井到用泵抽油需要一年或更长的时间，而在疫情暴发前只需要三到四个月的时间。预计今年的成本膨胀率将达到16%，并说明年还会增加。因此，Surge能源公司预计今年的产量年增长率为12%，低于截至今年第一季度的前12个月的29%。 

二叠纪盆地生产商UpCurve能源公司业务副总裁Dena Demboski说，有助于稳定井衬里的套管的成本比平时高出三倍，而完成订单交货期要更长时间。二叠纪盆地大型钻井公司先锋自然资源公司预计，明年新钻机合同的成本差不多将上涨40%。

活跃在二叠纪米德兰盆地的生产商火鸟能源公司首席执行官特拉维斯·汤普森表示：“无论是管子还是沙子，我们都很难获得所需的一些关键产品。”“如果我们想要增加钻井活动，比如从3部钻机增加到4部或5部钻机，我们肯定需要制定比过去1、2年更长远的钻井计划。”

从2012年到2019年，美国的石油产量平均日增705万桶。欧佩克多次试图通过放任油价下跌来排挤页岩生产商，但都以失败告终。然而，美国的页岩现在几乎没有希望取代估计每天200万至300万桶的产量，这些产量要么由于制裁而被关闭，要么被认为是不可交易的。

Enverus高级副总裁阿尔·萨拉萨尔表示：“大国的生产供应缺口太大，美国页岩无法单独填补。”今年，油田的“限产和生产商纪律限制页岩冷却油价的能力”。  

石油和汽油价格的飙升推动美国通胀率升至几十年来的最高水平，越来越明显的是，页岩不再是遏制油价飙升的灵丹妙药。美国似乎已放弃鼓励美国石油公司提高产量的公众呼吁，这是政府今年早些时候关注的一个重点。据知情人士透露，拜登目前正在考虑与沙特王储会面。  

先锋自然资源公司首席执行官斯科特·谢菲尔德日前在得克萨斯州哈特能源公司举办的DUG二叠纪会议上表示：“二叠纪盆地将提供帮助。” 但是“二叠纪盆地能拯救世界吗”?

李峻 编译自 美国油价网

原文如下：

World's Oil Growth Engine Is about to Slow

In a world crying out for more oil, a dusty stretch of West Texas and southeastern New Mexico is one of the only places that can deliver. But even with crude above $100 a barrel, producers in the Permian and other US shale basins are riding the brakes. 

For most of the past decade, the Permian was an unstoppable drilling machine. Its vast, low-cost reserves helped transform the US into the world’s swing oil supplier, primed to turbocharge output as soon as prices soared or to halt when they collapsed. Because shale producers amassed a backlog of wells that could be tapped in just a few weeks, a crude rally was sure to incite a fracking frenzy that would help replenish global stockpiles and cool off prices.

But not this time.

After the war in late February, crude prices surged to a 13-year high. Gasoline is above $4 a gallon in every US state for the first time.

Jet fuel in New York spiked to a record last month. Yet shale explorers show no sign of riding to the rescue. Their business model has fundamentally changed, reshaped by pressure to curb growth and divert cash to investors with dividends and buybacks. Inflation is also taking a toll. US oil output this year is expected to expand by less than half the amount it did in 2018, when crude traded around $65. That means more pain for consumers, with JPMorgan Chase & Co. predicting US gasoline at $6.20 a gallon by August.

“The US oil and gas supply system remains very potent, but at any given price, growth will be smaller and slower,” said Raoul LeBlanc, vice president for North American upstream oil and gas at S&P Global. “Without the subsidy that shale shareholders provided, consumers can expect to pay higher prices.”

Publicly traded independent oil companies, which produce more than half of U.S. crude, are now giving about a third of their cash flow back to investors. This means shale needs a new pricing floor of about $60 to $70 a barrel, up from $40 to $50 a barrel previously, to enable drilling broadly across the major U.S. oil plays, according to S&P Global. The pressure to prioritize shareholders over production is a direct result of the industry’s pre-pandemic, grow-at-any-cost model that,  according to Deloitte LLP, led to nearly $300 billion of cash burn over the previous decade. Though shale output will rise this year, forecasters says there's minimal additional growth coming as a result of the war, despite the rally in crude prices. 

The US will add about 900,000 barrels a day of oil production this year, according to the average of five major forecasters: S&P Global, Rystad Energy, BloombergNEF, Enverus and the US Energy Information Administration. That compares with 1.9 million a day in 2018. This year’s growth was planned before the war, and analysts only see a modest increase of about 800,000 barrels a day next year, which would finally bring US output to pre-pandemic levels. In the field, operators say forecasters’ current estimates may even be too optimistic. Several OPEC producers, meanwhile, are struggling to fill their output quotas, leaving the global crude market increasingly tight.

Wall Street isn’t the only source of shale’s growing pains. The global supply-chain crisis is particularly acute in the Permian Basin, which will make up 80% of this year’s US production growth, according to research and data firm Enverus.

Disruptions to equipment supplies mean if a company wants to increase production, it would now take a year or more between drilling to pumping oil, up from three to four months before the pandemic, Linhua Guan, CEO of Permian driller Surge Energy, said in an interview. Guan planned for 16% cost inflation this year and says that will increase next year. As a result, Surge expects a 12% annual production growth rate this  year, down from 29% in the 12 months through the first quarter. Even so, Guan expected the U.S. 

The cost of casing, a lining that helps to stabilize wells, is three times higher than usual and lead times to fill orders are much longer, said Dena Demboski, vice president of operations at Permian producer UpCurve Energy LLC. “Rig rates are higher than I've ever seen them” at more than $30,000 a day, she said. Pioneer Natural Resources Co., a major Permian driller, expects the cost of contracts for new rigs to rise as much as 40% next year. 

“It's just more difficult to get some of the key products that we need, whether that's pipe or sand,” said Travis Thompson, CEO of FireBird Energy LLC, a producer active in the Permian’s Midland Basin. “If we wanted to increase activity, say from three rigs to four or five, we would certainly have to plan on that a lot further out than what you would have had to a year or two back.”

America’s oil production increased by 7.05 million barrels a day from 2012 to 2019, adding new output equivalent to Iran and Iraq combined in just eight years. OPEC failed in its multiple attempts to sideline shale producers by allowing prices to crater. And yet U.S. shale now has little hope of replacing the estimated 2 million to 3 million barrels a day from the largest oil producer that are either shut-in or deemed untradeable because of sanctions. 

“The the largest oil producer's production supply gap is too big for shale to fill in alone,” said Al Salazar, senior vice president of Enverus. Oil field “constraints and producer discipline limit shale’s ability to cool prices” this year.

The jump in oil and gasoline prices has helped drive US inflation to the highest levels in decades, and it’s becoming increasingly clear that shale is no longer the silver bullet to counter skyrocketing crude prices. President appears to have abandoned public calls to encourage US drillers to boost production, a key focus for his administration earlier in this year. He’s now considering a meeting with Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, according to people familiar with the matter. 

“The Permian is going to be there to help,” Pioneer Natural Resources CEO Scott Sheffield said at Hart Energy's DUG Permian conference in Texas last week. But “is that going to save the world? Not with what happened” in Ukraine, he said.