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US Frackers Are Back to Haunt OPEC’s Price Strategy
OPEC’s one-time nemesis — US shale — is rearing its head just months after the sector was all but written off as a threat to the cartel’s sway over worldwide oil markets. Drillers from the Permian Basin in West Texas to the Bakken Shale of North Dakota have ramped up oil production well beyond what analysts foresaw, pushing output to a record just as OPEC and its allies put the brakes on supplies in a bid to arrest price declines. This time last year, US government forecasters predicted domestic production would average 12.5 million barrels a day during the current quarter. In recent days, that estimate was ... (full story)