U.S. energy executives are set to meet privately with top OPEC officials on March 6 for at least the fifth year at a Houston conference, people familiar with the matter said, as the former rivals have become joint beneficiaries of enormous global demand for their oil and gas.
The secretive dinner has been held almost annually at the CERAWeek energy conference. This year's event will be the first with Haitham Al Ghais as secretary general for the OPEC. He stepped into the role in August.
Top executives from U.S. companies, including the country's No. 1 natural gas producer EQT Corp. and its rival Chesapeake Energy Corp., were among those invited, according to sources.
U.S. executives who attend do not publicly discuss the dinners between the once-fierce adversaries. OPEC had viewed shale as an untamed force that undercut its revenue by bringing vast new oil supplies to market. More recently, relations have improved after investor demands for U.S. shale profits put the brakes on booming production.
This year's private dinner comes at a tumultuous time for global markets with the war in Ukraine disrupting global oil and gas flows while enriching both producer groups.
U.S. oil producers have restrained spending and scaled back production growth in favor of investor returns. OPEC, in the meantime, has committed to cut members' production by 2 million barrels per day, setting a floor on prices.
U.S. oil output is set to rise less than 600,000 bbl/d, down from around 2 MMbbl/d 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 homage to the region that helped spark the U.S. shale revolution.
“I was a good friend of Secretary Barkindo,” said Pioneer Natural Resources CEO Scott Sheffield in an interview on Monday. “I’ve not met the current Secretary, so I know nothing about how things will go,” he added.
He declined to say whether he would attend Monday’s dinner but has attended it in the past.
Fewer OPEC officials are present at this year's annual CERAWeek conferencing, with ministers from key countries including Saudi Arabia and Iraq absent from the attendee list.