OPEC, for some quiet moments..

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Jim Cramer congratulated oil speculators for getting the oil market dead wrong. Again. According to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's weekly commitment of traders report, large speculators, meaning money managers, were holding a net long position of 525,000 futures contracts just before oil dropped. They were betting on a huge spike in the price of crude. Carley Garner is a commodities expert and co-founder of DeCarley Trading, and said the position far exceeds the net-long position that speculators had prior to the massive oil decline in 2014. Garner said the odds favor a decline in the multi-year trend line of $47.50, but could potentially touch $44.30.

Cramer Remix: What’s driving oil’s massive liquidation

Senior Saudi energy officials told top independent U.S. oil firms in a closed-door meeting this week that they should not assume OPECwould extend output curbs to offset rising production from U.S. shale fields, two industry sources told Reuters on Thursday. Oil producers led by Saudi Arabia and top non-OPEC exporter Russiaare in an uneasy truce with U.S. shale firms after a two-year price war that sent many shale producers to the wall. The Saudis and Russia led a deal to curb output in late 2016 to end a global supply glut that pushed oil prices to a 12-year low.

Saudis to US oil firms: Don’t expect OPEC cuts to offset rising shale output

The inventory rise stoked concern that the glut could persist because shale supply, along with more output from Brazil and Canada, could offset output cuts by OPEC and some non-OPEC suppliers. The U.S. government expects U.S. oil output to rise 330,000 bpd in 2017, mostly from shale, but some analysts and producers are forecasting the increase could be more than double that amount.

Saudis to US oil firms: Don’t expect OPEC cuts to offset rising shale output

U.S. oil drillers can add millions of barrels per day to the global market, so long as they do so gradually, Saudi Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih said Tuesday. The market can absorb another 3 million to 5 million barrels a day of production from the United States "over a number of years," according to Falih, who is also chairman of Saudi Arabian oil giant Saudi Aramco. That increase would offset declining output in places like Mexico and the North Sea, he added.

US can grow oil output by 5 million barrels a day: Saudi oil minister