The Opec oil cartel is waking up to an unpleasant surprise. Shale output from the Permian Basin in Texas is expanding faster than the world thought humanly possible.

The scale threatens to neutralise output cuts agreed by Saudi Arabia and a Russian-led bloc last November, and ultimately threatens to break their strategic lockhold on the global crude market for a generation.

"People just don't seem to realise how big the Permian is. It will eventually pass the Ghawar field in Saudi Arabia, and that is the biggest in the world," said Scott Sheffield, founder of Pioneer Natural Resources and acclaimed 'King of the Permian'.

"We think it could produce 8-10m barrels a day (b/d) within ten years. We're telling our investors that Pioneer could reach one million," he said. Roughly 70pc of this would be crude oil, and the rest in gas and liquids.

And:

The beauty of the Permian rock is that it has up to twelve layers "stacked" on top of each other down to a depth of 12,000 ft, offering multiple seams and perfectly suited to horizontal drilling.

The reservoirs are not cursed by saltwater zones. They hold 75pc oil, compared to 40-50pc in other fracking regions. A nexus of pipelines is already in place. Pioneer can send crude to the Gulf coast for $2.50 a barrel in transport costs.

And:

There is no longer any question that US shale has profoundly disrupted the global oil markets. Saudi Arabia's campaign to break the fracking industry has been a costly war of attrition, depleting a quarter trillion dollars of the Kingdom's foreign exchange reserves without halting the juggernaut.

OPEC members face a Permian headwind that may cap crude prices far below levels needed to balance their budgets. In the end, the 40pc collapse in worldwide oil and gas investment over the last two years will lead to a supply crunch. But oil bulls betting on a return to $80 may have to be patient.

Mr Sheffield said the strategic blunder made by the Saudis was to let prices rise so high for so long in the great China boom. It gave US shale the window to reach critical mass and critical technology.

 "It was the $100 oil environment for four years that allowed us to do what we did. It they had kept oil down at $70 to $75, it would have been a helluva a lot slower," he said.

David Fuller's view

The concluding sentence above is another example of the commodity adage: The cure for high prices is high prices.  They lead to a decline in consumption, substitution, and increased production.  Conversely: The cure for low prices is low prices.  They eventually lead to a decline in production, stockpiling, and increased consumption. 

I actually think AE-P is too optimistic in his excellent column above.  When he says that Permian Basin output “ultimately threatens to break their [OPEC’s] strategic lockhold on the global crude market for a generation”, that already happened in the second half of 2014. 

Almost a decade from now, output from Permian Basin and other leading shale fields is likely to be higher, provided oil prices have not fallen sharply from current levels.  Moreover, any developed country which wants to produce its own shale oil will be doing so if it has been able to overcome political objections.  The production of solar power will have increased enormously.  Electric vehicles will have made huge inroads into the market for petrol driven cars and trucks. 

Here is a PDF of AE-P’s article.