OPEC can't lift oil prices without losing market share

Bloomberg/Fuel Fix:

Oil prices won’t rebound to $100 a barrel because increased prices would draw more shale and other output from higher-cost producers to the market, said Mohammed al-Madi, Saudi Arabia’s governor to OPEC.

“I think it will be difficult to reach $100 or $120 another time,” al-Madi said at a conference in Riyadh on Sunday. “This will let the high-cost producers come back again.” Saudi Arabia, the nation leading OPEC in defending its share of the global oil market, will keep investing to maintain its current output capacity, he said.

Brent oil, the global benchmark, declined almost 50 percent in the past year as Saudi Arabia and others in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries committed to maintain output amid a global surplus. U.S. output is the highest in three decades as drillers pump crude from shale.

“Shale oil companies are one of the high-cost producers that benefited from high oil prices,” al-Madi said. “We’re not against shale oil. We welcomed shale oil but it’s not fair for high-cost producers to push low-cost producers out of the market.”

OPEC’s role in the oil market hasn’t been undermined by the drop in prices since its Nov. 27 meeting in Vienna when it chose market share over production cuts, al-Madi said.

“If OPEC could have controlled the prices it would have done so, but it is not in the interest of OPEC to control the prices,” al-Madi said. “It is OPEC’s interest to achieve balance in the market. The price should be decided by the market, and the market is subject to supply and demand.”
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The cost of shale production has put a ceiling on the price of OPEC oil, and as shale producers become more efficient with the decline in pricing it is like that ceiling will continue to decline.  There are things the US could do to further eat away at the OPEC market share.  For example the Keystone XL pipeline would  allow the US to replace all Venezuelan heavy oil with oil from Canada.  Removing the barriers to exports and shipping would also make US oil more competitive on a global scale and also have strategic consequences for non OPEC countries like Russia.  It would also allow the US to replace Iran production in the export market.