OPEC, for some quiet moments..

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Easy Wall Street cash is leading U.S. shale companies to expand drilling, even as most lose money on every barrel of oil they bring to the surface. Despite a 17% plunge in prices since April, drillers are on pace to break the all-time U.S. oil production record, topping 10 million barrels a day by early next year if not sooner, according to government officials and analysts.

Wall Street Cash Pumps Up Oil Production Even as Prices Sag - WSJ

Brent crude could potentially drop to $40 a barrel or below in the first quarter of 2018 without deeper output curbs by OPEC, according to an oil analyst at industry consultant JBC Energy GmbH. The benchmark for more than half the world’s oil may end 2017 between $45 and $47 a barrel, after which the market may turn “very tricky,” said Richard Gorry, managing director at JBC Asia. While prices are being supported by recent U.S. inventory draws amid the summer driving season when fuel demand typically peaks, that trend will reverse from early-September as consumption weakens, he said.

Oil's Surge Masks Risk of Brent Slumping to $40 After Summer - Bloomberg

Royal Dutch Shell plc, through its subsidiary BG E&P Brasil Ltda. (Shell) and consortium partners in Lula South, announce today that deepwater production has started at the FPSO P-66, which is located in the Brazilian pre-salt of the Santos basin. Positioned in 2,150-m water depth, the P-66 can process up to 150,000 bbl of oil and 6-million m3 of natural gas per day. The unit is the first in a series of standardized vessels operated by Petrobras to begin production within the BM-S-11 block consortium and the seventh to produce within the consortium overall.

Shell announces start of deepwater production at newest FPSO in Santos basin

DDriverless cars will drastically reduce accidents because they will replace reckless drivers, they will never speed, and they will be equipped to see and hear better than any of us. As previously explained here, this social gospel will be partly offset by massive layoffs, first in the auto-repair industry and then also in auto production, because a car’s ability to drive independently between a couple’s workplaces will make them shed their second car, and the subsequent emergence of an autonomous cab might make many shed the first car as well..

How driverless cars will kill the oil business - MarketWatch