Oil hovered around $46 per barrel in New York, back to levels last seen before the deal to cut production set by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), as the shale revival appears to be making the group’s cuts ineffective, World Oil reported.
According to CNN, the downturn has hit the share prices of major energy companies, such as ExxonMobil. Chinese oil stocks were also affected, as Sinopec sank 2.9% and PetroChina fell 2.1%.
RBC Capital Markets’ Commodities Strategist in New York, Michael Tran, stated early May to World Oil, “What we’ve seen in terms of the rebound today is really just a bit of a correction following an oversold market over the past several days.”
The OPEC agreement, the cartel’s first cut since 2008, was supposed to prop up oil prices and end the epic glut that has roiled the industry. However, the deal encouraged U.S. producers to ramp up drilling.
The result has been an 11-week expansion of American production, which is the longest run of gains since 2012. Prices are still more than 50% below their peak in 2014, when surging shale output triggered crude’s biggest collapse in a generation and left rival producers such as Saudi Arabia scrambling to protect market share.