Brent has gathered some momentum while WTI prices have shown just a little bit of hesitation. The difference in the price movements of the two oil benchmarks reflects a slight divergence in fundamentals between the U.S. and the rest of the world. U.S. shale continues to grow at a brisk rate, with production at 12.1 million barrels per day (mb/d), up nearly 600,000 bpd from October levels. The EIA recently revised up its forecast for U.S. production to 12.4 mb/d this year, up from the previous 12.1 mb/d it had expected for 2019. Many U.S. shale companies are showing signs of weakness , struggling to turn a profit and cutting spending in the face of investor pressure. But production growth continues, much of it increasingly led by the oil majors . In the EIA’s most recent Drilling Productivity Report , the agency expects the major U.S. shale basins to […]