CERAWEEK-OPEC, US energy chiefs to huddle again in Houston as rapport deepens

Ron Bousso and Liz Hampton

(Reuters). -U.S. executives in energy will be meeting privately with top OPEC officers on Monday, at Houston. This is because the two former rivals are now joint beneficiaries of huge global oil and gas demand.

This secretive dinner is held nearly every year at CERAWeek’s energy conference. Haitham al Ghais will take over as Secretary General for the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. This is the first time that this event has been held. In August, he assumed the position.

According to reports, top U.S. executives were invited. These included EQT Corp, the nation’s leading natural gas producer, and Chesapeake Energy Corp.

The dinners are not discussed publicly by the American executives that attend. OPEC was adamant that shale would bring new oil to the market, and thus reduce its revenues. Recent developments have seen improved relations as investors demanded U.S.-shale profits to slow down booming production.

The private dinner this year comes during a turbulent time in global markets, with global oil and gas supplies being disrupted by the conflict in Ukraine. However, it will be a great opportunity to enrich both producers groups.

U.S. oil production has been slowed down and investors have received higher returns as a result. OPEC has insisted on reducing members’ production by two million barrels per hour, setting a ceiling for prices.

U.S. oil output is set to rise less than 600,000 bpd, down from around 2 million bpd in 2018 – a breakneck pace that had sparked tensions with OPEC as its market share declined.

In a show of how the acrimony has fallen away, U.S. officials at the conference last year – just after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – gifted the former Secretary General Mohammad Barkindo a bottle of “Genuine Barnett Shale,” An ode to the region which helped ignite the U.S. Shale Revolution.

“I was a good friend of Secretary Barkindo,” Scott Sheffield, Chief Executive Officer of Pioneer Natural Resources in an interview conducted Monday”I’ve not met the current Secretary, so I know nothing about how things will go,” He added.

While he did not say whether or not he would attend the Monday dinner, a past participant has.

This year, fewer OPEC representatives are at the annual CERAWeek conferencing. Ministers from important countries such as Saudi Arabia and Iraq were absent.

(Reporting by Liz Hampton, Ron Bousso and Stephanie Kelly in Houston. Additional reporting by Stephanie KellyEditing done by Marguerita Choy & David Gregorio