Macro Commentary
The proverbial sword cuts both ways. The ripples felt as OPEC put the oil world on its head in November 2014 have reverberated back. The action of stepping back as the “producer at the margin” adjusting their output to manage the commodity price was intended to put the burden on the US shale producers that had grown production substantially after innovation increased the productivity of their processes while reducing costs. The swinging sword had its intended effect slashing rig counts and dropping US production below 9mm barrels per day. But the sword kept swinging. We have noted in weeklies past about the deficit in Saudi Arabia’s GDP and the recent announcement of a strategic plan to cut the vast arrays of subsidies to the public and publicly list the state-owned oil company in response. Just this week, Fitch cut the country’s credit rating one notch albeit to AA- from AA. This weekend there is a scheduled talk in Doha, Qatar where there is an expectation for some kind of output freeze agreement. Commodity prices have been bubbling back in anticipation. We have seen these expectations come and go since the commodity price started its fall and it was hoped that OPEC had felt enough pain too. Regardless, low prices and no investment has its effects over time as demand remains resilient and field production naturally declines. The question is how much time.