Bob Dudley, in his 38 years in the oil industry, has never seen anything like what happened with BP Plc’s old fields last year: They gushed more crude.
“I cannot remember ever in my career having seen a negative decline rate,” the British oil-giant’s chief executive officer said in an interview on the sidelines of the CERAWeek by IHS Markit energy conference in Houston.
Dudley isn’t alone in seeing mature fields dwindling less than expected –in BP’s case surprisingly increasing — giving the OPEC one more thing to worry about. As if the shale boom wasn’t enough of a headache.
Better results from legacy fields, also observed by producers like Royal Dutch Shell Plc and countries like Norway, further complicate efforts by petro-states like Saudi Arabia to push prices higher by curbing supplies. […]
