Goldman Sachs has diagnosed a new reason for the sudden slump in energy industry sentiment this week: talk of agility, not agony, among leading U.S. shale oil producers speaking at the Wall Street bank’s closed-door conference. In a research note following its Jan. 5-7 Global Energy Conference in Miami, which was closed to the media, the analysts said that investor sentiment “deteriorated further” during the event for three reasons, including a view that drillers were still overly optimistic about the potential for $50 oil. “Investors felt producers were not being responsive to $35 a barrel WTI (West Texas Intermediate crude oil) by focusing more on their agility versus potential for their production to decline,” they wrote. Unfavorable weather and weakness in the Chinese economy also weighed on sentiment, the analysts said in a note entitled “Are […]