美国页岩产业再次繁荣需要更多时间|美元_新浪财经

原标题：美国页岩产业再次繁荣需要更多时间

中国石化新闻网讯据钻机地带1月6日报道，不要指望美国的页岩产业会在每桶50美元的油价和沙特计划减少石油产量的情况下再次繁荣。

过去几年，美国石油勘探公司可能会下意识地提高产量、抢占市场份额，而现在，它们更多的是获得了偿还债务或增加股息的机会。

西方石油公司首席执行官负责德克萨斯州二叠纪盆地最大的勘探和生产业务之一的维克·霍尔卢布（Vicki Hollub）周二接受彭博电视台采访时表示，我们现在的首要任务是减少债务。如今我们已经接近每桶50美元的正确生产模式了，因为我们所要做的仅仅是进一步提高利润。

周二，沙特阿拉伯出人意料地决定在2月和3月将石油日产量削减100万桶，导致纽约原油价格自去年2月以来首次突破50美元/桶。此后，疫情导致石油市场崩盘，逾40家勘探公司破产。加拿大皇家银行资本市场(RBC Capital Markets)首席大宗商品策略师Helima Croft称，此举对美国页岩油开采商来说是一份特别甜蜜的礼物。

但即使在疫情爆发之前，华尔街就已经对页岩气行业感到厌倦，这个行业消耗了数十亿美元的现金，却几乎没有给投资者带来任何回报。因此，生产商更有可能利用来自沙特阿拉伯的利好来回报投资者，而不是提高产量，从油价反弹中获利。

IHS Markit执行董事Aaron Brady表示，为了增加产量，西德克萨斯中质原油的价格需要持续保持在50美元/桶以上，或者接近60美元/桶。

Brady补充道，此外，页岩生产商增加产量至少需要三个月的时间，因为这将涉及到新钻井的决策和完井人员的共同努力。

郝芬译自钻机地带

原文如下：

Shale Needs More to Boom Again

Don’t count on America’s shale industry to boom once again in response to $50-a-barrel oil and Saudi Arabia’s plan to throttle back its own oil production.

What in previous years might have triggered a knee-jerk reaction by U.S. oil explorers to raise output and grab market share is, this time around, more just an opportunity for them to pay down debt or boost dividends.

“Our primary priority right now is to reduce debt,” Occidental Petroleum Corp. Chief Executive Officer Vicki Hollub, who heads one of the largest exploration and production operations in Texas’s Permian Basin, said in an interview with Bloomberg TV on Tuesday. “We’re pretty close to the right production profile for $50 a barrel today because what we’re trying to do is just further improve our margins.”

Saudi Arabia’s surprise decision Tuesday to curb output by 1 million barrels a day in February and March caused oil prices in New York to surge above $50 a barrel for the first time since February, before the pandemic sent oil markets crashing and over 40 explorers went bankrupt. Helima Croft, chief commodities strategist at RBC Capital Markets, described the move as an especially sweet gift for U.S. shale drillers.

But even before the pandemic, Wall Street was growing weary of shale, an industry that had burned through billions of dollars in cash while delivering little in the way of returns for investors. So producers are more likely to use the tailwind from Saudi Arabia to pay back investors as opposed to raising output to capitalize on the rally.

To increase production, “shale will need a sustained price of above $50 a barrel for West Texas Intermediate crude, or probably closer to $60,” said Aaron Brady, executive director for IHS Markit.

Plus, it would take at least three months for shale producers to ramp up production, because that would involve decisions on new drilling and getting well-completion crews together, Brady added.