Benoît Morenne
Appearances
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Hopes to Use Tariff Talks to Isolate China
Yeah, well, crude prices have been in for a tough ride since Trump's Rose Garden announcement about two weeks ago, where he unveiled all those tariffs against a number of countries in the world. You've seen U.S. oil prices drop by about 10% since this announcement. This drop also applies to global crude prices. So everyone's very carefully looking at growth demand for oil this year.
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Hopes to Use Tariff Talks to Isolate China
got it and that lower demand for oil is very much a part of this most recent report from the iea that's right it's a pretty gnarly situation for a number of oil and gas producers especially here in the us because they're finding themselves squeezed between opec
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Hopes to Use Tariff Talks to Isolate China
which is this oil producing cartel that has decided to unwind production cuts starting next month, which has been surprising to a number of observers of the market because those increases are going to be much more substantial than people expected. And then at the same time, you're seeing the potential for some sort of global slowdown, which would impact oil.
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Hopes to Use Tariff Talks to Isolate China
demand for their product so you'd have weakening demand for oil at the same time that you're seeing an oversupply market which is sort of the worst case scenario for oil and gas producers it's pretty good for gasoline consumers however right because you're likely to see lower gasoline prices which of course was a core promise of president trump on the campaign trail
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Hopes to Use Tariff Talks to Isolate China
Companies in the U.S. need a certain price at which they can do a number of things. They can return cash to shareholders. They can service debt. And then they can make a small profit, ideally. But even if they just want to break even, they would need U.S. oil prices at a level of above $62 a barrel. Right now we're about $61.
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Hopes to Use Tariff Talks to Isolate China
a tough position for those companies to be in if they want to keep adding oil and keep growing this year. U.S. shale had been slowing down already and producers were anticipating that this curve was going to come down maybe starting next year or the year after that. That's a function of aging oil fields.
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Hopes to Use Tariff Talks to Isolate China
But now that oil prices are projected to be fairly lowish for the remainder of the year and potentially into next, this is not incentivizing companies to be adding production, especially when you look at the impact of steel tariffs, right? About 25%, that's an added cost on your bringing wells online because you're using a lot of steel, right?
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Hopes to Use Tariff Talks to Isolate China
And plus everything's more expensive, and that includes labor.
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Hopes to Use Tariff Talks to Isolate China
Absolutely. The U.S. is an energy superpower. It exports a lot of its products, whether it be natural gas, liquefied natural gas, or crude or petroleum products. That includes a number of products that are derived from oil and gas, a lot of those products go to China, for instance, which is a big employer of certain products like ethane that is used to make plastics, propane, butane.
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Hopes to Use Tariff Talks to Isolate China
And it's a global market. And so it's likely that those barrels that would have gone to China will find other buyers. That being said, there are specificities to the Chinese market, which make it a very good one for certain US products. And then you have this fragmenting of the global trade, which is just going to make it a little trickier to find those alternative buyers overall, right?
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Hopes to Use Tariff Talks to Isolate China
In addition to inducing this potential slowdown globally as economies find themselves dealing with all this uncertainty.