Crude Petroleum Extraction

The oil market will fall into a far larger oil deficit sooner than expected following surprise production cuts from some of OPEC’s leading members, the International Energy Agency said Friday.  The gaping hole in the global oil market between the availability of crude and rebounding demand will reach 2 million barrels a day by the third quarter of the year, the Paris-based energy watchdog said in a closely followed monthly report.  The oil market will fall into a far larger oil deficit…

Exxon Mobil Corp.’s XOM -0.44% hunt for a blockbuster deal in U.S. shale could kick off a bonanza of deal-making in the oil patch as drillers look to put large war chests of cash to work.The oil giant has held preliminary talks with Pioneer Natural Resources Co. PXD 5.79% , a Texas fracker with a roughly $52 billion market capitalization, about a potential acquisition, The Wall Street Journal reported last week. Exxon,…

About fifty miles southwest of Midland, Texas, deep in the oil-saturated Permian Basin, more than 100 workers are busy laying out roads and water lines, preparing to build an elaborate complex of fans, each as large as a tennis court. When they start running in 2024, the fans will suck massive amounts of carbon dioxide out of the air. The carbon will be funneled thousands of feet down deep wells into geological formations, where it should remain for centuries.  The company behind this environmental moonshot…

Exxon Mobil Corp. XOM -1.66% has held preliminary talks with Pioneer Natural Resources Co. PXD -1.06% about a possible acquisition of the U.S. fracking giant, as the oil major hunts for a blockbuster deal in the shale patch, according to people familiar with the matter.Discussions between the two companies about a potential deal have been informal, the people said. But after posting record profits in 2022, Exxon is…

Exxon has abandoned a multibillion-dollar wager on finding oil in the deep waters off Brazil after a series of disappointing wells left it with nothing to show for more than five years of work in a country it touted as a key source of growth, according to people familiar with the matter. After failing for the third time to find commercially viable amounts of crude there last year, the Texas oil giant has shifted geologists and engineers from working on the offshore acreage it began snapping up with partners for $4 billion…

DUBAI—An oil production cut by Saudi Arabia and its allies demonstrated how Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is willing to set aside U.S. concerns to pursue a nationalist energy policy aimed at funding an expensive makeover of his kingdom.This weekend’s move came as a surprise after Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman told industry analysts privately in February that the kingdom would tolerate oil prices slipping to around $65 or $70 a barrel,…

HOUSTON—The boom in oil production that over the last decade made the U.S. the world’s largest producer is waning, suggesting the era of shale growth is nearing its peak.Frackers are hitting fewer big gushers in the Permian Basin, America’s busiest oil patch, the latest sign they have drained their catalog of good wells. Shale companies’ biggest and best wells are producing less oil, according to data reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The Journal reported last year companies would exhaust their best U.S. inventory in a…

A year of war in Ukraine has highlighted the return of oil as a source of U.S. financial influence and geopolitical power. As the West has shunned most Russian energy, unleashing a pressure campaign against the Kremlin’s petroleum revenues, record U.S. crude exports have helped fill the gap in Europe with the oil needed to produce gasoline, diesel and jet fuel.…

Frackers are set to plow more cash into oil fields this year compared with last, but it isn’t expected to unleash the flood of crude that past spending binges in the shale patch have.  EOG Resources Inc. EOG -4.41% said it would spend about $1.4 billion more than last year, but that its oil production would rise by only about 3% in 2023. Pioneer Natural Resources Co. PXD -4.14% said it would augment its budget by nearly…

Middling oil producer Denbury Inc. DEN -0.27% emerged from bankruptcy in September 2020 with a collection of aging wells, pipelines to move around carbon dioxide and uncertain prospects.Today, the Dallas-based company is one of the big winners of the Biden administration’s signature climate bill. Denbury took on significant amounts of debt over the past decade acquiring oil properties and building out the pipelines, which ferry CO2 to depleted oil fields and coax out…