A brief bite was taken out of otherwise growing late August US Gulf of Mexico supply by preventive shutdowns related to Tropical Storm Hermine's Gulf incursion. Other than that, non-Opec supply has been enjoying a lack of the outages that plagued the first half of the year. The US hurricane season still has another three months to go and conditions seem to favor additional Gulf of Mexico storms, especially this month and next; November storms are more rare. At the same time US growth in the Gulf of Mexico faces weather bumps, the thought-to-be terminally ill shale sector is showing signs of life. Sputtering spring-summer oil price rallies have put some rigs back to work, while some producers were able to hedge forward second-half drilling programs and some 2017 plans. Shale patch M&A activity has also picked up, as well as refinancing and equity issues that will re-liquefy selected shale players.
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