US tight oil: Too light, too sweet
International buyers' appetite may start to wane in 2018
US light tight oil output is transforming world oil markets. After falling during the 2015 oil price crash, total American production - of which shale is now a major source - surged back onto markets, and the Energy Information Administration (EIA) expects output to rise another 0.5m barrels a day in 2018, to a record 9.9m b/d. Much of this new production is finding its way onto global markets, and exports now regularly run over 1m b/d. But can there be too much of a good thing? Specifically, with Opec's light sweet crude exporters Libya and Nigeria staggering back from extended production outages, and big Persian Gulf producers tightening availabilities of middle-gravity sour crudes, i
Also in this section
16 May 2024
Flat oil growth in 2024 highlights mounting industry problems
15 May 2024
Five years ago, Uzbekistan turned to a private company called Saneg to reverse the fortunes of its oil industry. Results so far are encouraging, and according to CEO Tulkin Yusupov, further progress is on the way
13 May 2024
But optimism about island nation checked by competition around African upstream investment and history of false dawns
9 May 2024
Pipeline boosts Canada’s oil industry by widening its export options, making it less reliant on US market and bringing Asia into the mix