$40 Could Be Magic Number for Some Oil Players

The $40 per barrel level for West Texas Intermediate crude oil could trigger an uptick in activity among some oil market players, an informed market-watcher told Rigzone. Keep reading to learn about what specific activity could be on the rise, along with other developments to watch for this week in the oil market.

Tom Seng, Director – School of Energy Economics, Policy and Commerce, University of Tulsa’s Collins College of Business: Large U.S. oil producers, such as ConocoPhillips, have announced that they will begin to bring back oil production that was shut-in due to lower prices. Look for mergers and acquisitions activity to start to increase if prices can stabilize at or above the $40 level. The “bottom-feeders” who have waited to buy really “cheap” assets will have to contend with higher valuations now.

Tom Curran, Senior Energy Services and Equipment Analyst in Equity Research, B. Riley FBR, Inc.: Come 1 p.m. Eastern time on each of the next two Fridays, our attention will be fixated on the Baker Hughes rig count site. The weekly U.S. active frac spread count troughed at 45 in mid-May, pivoted into an uptrend, surging by 33 units to 78 as of June 19, 2020, and has vacillated in the 70s since, according to Primary Vision. Given our industry recovery thesis – which is that operators would first restart shut-in production and increase DUC (drilled but uncompleted) well executions, then pick up new well drilling, which should see a slower rise than completion activity – we believe a definitive floor is imminent for the weekly Baker Hughes U.S. land drilling rig count. In fact, a bottoming process may already be underway. The count’s downtrend has significantly decelerated since early June. For the last three weekly measures, Baker has reported 255, 254 and 251.

Barani Krishnan, Senior Commodities Analyst at Investing.com: Expect all eyes to be on virus stats for the coming week or two. Regardless of what the Trump administration says or wants us to think, the pandemic will decide the course of oil demand and the economy – not the other way around.

To contact the author, email mveazey@rigzone.com.