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That discussion was particularly focused on the Permian Basin in northwest Texas and southeast New Mexico.

Vicky Hollub, the CEO of Occidental Petroleum Corp., speculated that Permian production could in coming years reach as high as four or five million barrels per day, up from around 2.2 million bpd today.

The prospect threatens to undermine the efforts of OPEC, which now looks at risk of having ceded market share for no substantial price gain.

A confluence of factors has created “near nirvana” for the U.S. shale industry, analysts at Citi Group said in a recent research note. Among those factors was the OPEC-led agreement to curb oil supplies in an attempt to lift prices.

With group says it has still not decided whether it will extend its agreement to cut supply, which are currently set to terminate in June.

“Should OPEC extend the production caps and global demand remain robust, global inventories should still drop,” the analysts said.

Saudi Arabia’s energy minister attempted to strike a more conciliatory tone with U.S. shale producers during prepared remarks last week, saying recent investments by its state-run oil giant Saudi Aramco in the U.S. Gulf Coast was “indicative of the alignment between the United States of America.”

He downplayed the risk of growing U.S. shale production, saying that declines in other areas of the world would “more than offset” gains in the Lower 48.

Most executives, after more than two years of slumping oil prices, had seemed to comfortably settle into a war of attrition—typically summarized by the mantra that prices will remain “lower for longer.”

Some only slightly more optimistic, like BP CEO Bob Dudley who had in the past revised to the phrase to include the caveat: “lower for longer—but not forever,” as he said last week.

Statoil A.S.A. CEO Eldar Saetre said was blunter about the impacts of lower prices.

“The downturn has been long and painful.”

jsnyder@postmedia.com