Texas Drillers Face Threat of Too Much Oil, Too Few Pipelines
- WTI Midland discounts to slump to $5 a barrel by year end
- New pipeline to be key to ease Permian producer concerns
Workers connect drill bits and drill collars in Texas
Photographer: Brittany Sowacke/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Oil production in West Texas is about to outgrow pipeline capacity, a combination that knocked down crude prices in the region three years ago.
West Texas Intermediate crude at Midland, Texas, the heart of the Permian Basin, sank this month to the lowest level since September. It’s the weakest for this time of year since 2014, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That year, the discount versus the same oil in Cushing, Oklahoma, the U.S. benchmark, plunged to $21 in August as the shale boom flooded the region with oil.