OPEC Asks for Help in Balancing Oil Market

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From CNN Money:
OPEC has asked a favor of other major producers: Please stop pumping so much and help us balance the market. 
The unusual plea was issued Thursday in the cartel's closely-watched monthly report, which found that global markets are still suffering from too much supply.

The report said that balancing the market would "require the collective efforts of all oil producers" and should be done "not only for the benefit of the individual countries, but also for the general prosperity of the world economy." 
OPEC said that one producer in particular is to blame: The U.S., where shale producers have continued to ramp up their drilling despite lower crude prices.
Continue reading this article by clicking here.

Meanwhile, a Forbes article says that U.S. shale drillers still haven't won their battle with OPEC:
  • More than 200 U.S. energy companies filing for bankruptcy in less than 2 years;
  • A commodity price about half of what it was 3 years ago;
  • Rig count half of the 2014 level;
  • An industry just now beginning recover from large layoffs during 2015 and 2016.
If the current state of the U.S. upstream oil and gas industry is what an industry looks like when it has "won" a war, then let's not have any more wars, OK? 
 
But that's exactly what some in the energy-related news media would have you believe:  that the U.S. shale industry has succeeded in staring down the OPEC cartel's effort to put it out of business and emerged victorious.  Several readers contacted me and ask me if that was not in fact the bottom line of the piece I posted last Friday, titled "OPEC Still Fundamentally Misunderstands U.S. Oil Industry."

Well, no, that was not the point, but since some took it that way, I guess a fuller explanation is in order.

Click here to read more from that article. 

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