Brent Oil Set to Disappear as Crude-Price Benchmark Lives On

[thackney]

Brent Oil Set to Disappear as Crude-Price Benchmark Lives On
https://www.wsj.com/articles/brent-oil-set-to-disappear-as-crude-price-benchmark-lives-on-11575284774


The world’s most famous oil and gas field—and the backbone of global crude pricing—has dried up. Soon the Brent benchmark will have no Brent oil.

Royal Dutch Shell PLC is expected next year to plug the last remaining Brent oil wells, located in the North Sea’s East Shetland Basin, about 115 miles northeast of Scotland’s Shetland Islands. The closures mark the end of an era, as the industry shifts its focus to smaller oil finds near existing infrastructure....

[IsailedawayfromFR]

Brent was one great oilfield.

Its outstanding reservoir character and enviously high grade of crude contributed to its superior productivity.

And of course, that is its downfall after a producing life of less than most giant oilfields.

Prolific fields like that produce at such high rates they are enormously profitable but have the downside of having relatively short lives.

The current production in this US concentrates on low quality, discontinuous reservoirs.  These have lessened profitability but are blessed with considerably longer producing lives.

We as a country will enjoy that effect for a long, long time.