OPEC, for some quiet moments..

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China’s got the world puzzling over its oil hoard. From underground caverns by the Yellow Sea to a scattering of islands in the Yangtze River delta, the government has been stockpiling crude for emergencies in a network of storage sites dotted around the country. Record purchases this year by the world’s biggest energy consumer have helped oil prices recover from the worst crash in a generation. What the country plans to do next could determine where they go from here.

Mystery of oil held on Chinese islands puzzles crude markets

The worst has passed for oil prices, which are now too low to ensure investment in the new supplies needed during the rest of the decade, IHS Markit Ltd.’s Vice Chairman Daniel Yergin said. Crude futures, trading near $48/bbl on Wednesday, will rise next year to the "mid-$50 range,” Yergin said in an interview. The market is rebalancing as the global oversupply diminishes, with U.S. crude production set to fall another “couple of hundred thousand” barrels a day by the end of this year, he said. The recovery will be unaffected by any OPEC decision to freeze output, he added.

Worst is over for oil as investment at risk, IHS’s Yergin says

Looking only at oil production in the Lower 48 states (excluding the Gulf of Mexico), Rystad Energy observes 120,000 bpd higher output in August 2016 compared to EIA’s latest August 2016 STEO. Nearly 70 rigs in the Permian basin have returned to operation since early May and current horizontal drilling activity in West Texas and New Mexico is comparable to the levels observed in 2Q-4Q 2015. Additional completion works on drilled but uncompleted (DUC) wells have also been initiated and new volumes coming from the Permian basin are sufficient to balance the decline from more mature liquid plays in September-October 2016.

U.S. onshore production has stopped declining; growth is coming from Permian basin

Russia sees no need for talks with other major oil exporters on freezing output with prices at around $50/bbl, according to the Energy Ministry in Moscow. If prices fall, then Russia will consider resuming discussions, the ministry’s press service cited Energy Minister Alexander Novak as saying.

Russia says oil output freeze not needed with price near $50