China Oil &Gas:DB Access China 2018conference takeaways -Wood Mackenzie
Oil price. WM holds a conservative view on the oil price with Brentexpected to average USD56/bbl in 2018 and that holding above USD60/bbl will be more difficult than it seems. In the near term, the oil price is inequilibrium but global supply growth will outstrip demand growth for therest of 2018, mainly with tight oil growing 1.2m b/d and large volumescoming out in deepwater Brazil. In addition, US tight oil plays can nowconvincingly hedge their positions at USD62/bbl WTI.
Capex. Total upstream spend should remain flat at USD400bn only mainlybecause of a huge drop in LNG spend particularly in Australia. Deep waterand unconventional will fill the gap and is expected to grow 15% yoy.
Cost curve. The pre-FID deepwater cost-curve breakevens have fallenfrom USD78/bbl in 3Q14 to USD64/bbl in 1Q17 to USD56/bbl in 3Q17.
The lower cost in 1Q17 is mainly due to the removal of some expensiveAngola projects. One will also see that in 2014, there was only 5b BOE ofcashflow positive reserves versus 20 bn BOE in 2017.
Tight Oil. Output should rise 24% and 1.2m b/d to 6.2m b/d. Rapid growthwill lead to challenges and rising costs. The key to success for tight oilis productivity. A 10% fall in production destroys 60% more value than a10% in cost increase. Questions continue to be asked about whether tightoil can break even. The volume of undrilled liquid resource in the Permianhas increased with 13b BOE under USD60/bbl WTI during 3Q17.
OFS. 2018 should still be a tough year and the business model for OFScompanies needs to adjust to work in a USD50/bbl oil environment. Thebenefit will come from operators who have the best chance to lock-inrock-bottom OFS costs.
Resource capture. Asian NOCs need to get involved with 15b of boeup for grabs. 28b boe of discovered resource is up for grabs in Iran. Inthe UAE, 700k b/d ADMA concession expires Mar 2018 with remainingreserves of 7.4b bbl. Brazil aims to offer 10b boe of deepwater DROs.