An uptick in oil prices is unlikely to cut short a drilling rally, and DUCs can help maintain the momentum toward market balance. Questions have emerged on whether accelerated drilling activity in the United States will bring a screeching halt to the tentative rally in crude prices. It won’t, say analysts at Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. In short, the United States needs a return to growth in 2017 to balance the market by the end of the year, they said in a recent note to investors. Although the estimated 2016 exit rate for production is on target at 8.4 thousand barrels of production per day (mbopd) to 8.5 mbopd, the first quarter 2017 has some downside risk of missing the 8.5 mbopd estimate, the analysts said. Outside of the Permian Basin and the STACK plays, operators have been hesitant to add horizontal rigs, they said. In the Eagle […]