Shale Oil NEWS

China's Sinopec Corp said on Tuesday it has tapped a daily flow of 30 tonnes of oil and 1,500 cubic meters of gas at a mature oilfield in east China's Jiangsu province. The company said the flows, from exploration well Hua-2-ce in the Jiangsu oilfield, marked a breakthrough in unlocking 1.1 billion tonnes of prospective shale oil resources in the Subei basin. The firm will accelerate the construction of a pilot shale oil production zone in the area, Sinopec said, without giving further details.

U.S. shale oil producers are returning to existing wells and giving them a second, high-pressure blast to lift output for a fraction of the cost of a finishing a new well. These "re-fracs" are taking hold as shale oil producers look to take advantage of $100 a barrel crude without making big investments in new wells and fields. A global oil shortage has triggered calls from U.S. President Joe Biden for shale producers to spend more of their profits on increasing output. But shale firms have been under pressure for years from shareholders to focus on returns rather than production growth. Their reluctance to invest in more output has led to tensions between the oil industry and the White House, which is under pressure to rein in record $5 per gallon fuel prices that have contributed to decades-high inflation.

If sources were to be believed, BHP Billiton Ltd. has received first-round bids for its U.S. shale portfolio at around $7 billion to $9 billion, from BP Plc, Chevron Corp. BHP may hold a second-round bids in early July as the company prefers to sell the unit to a single party and is anticipating a deal as big as $13b. Shell is purposely interested in BHP’s Permian basin assets.