The worm is turning for the crude oil price and American petroleum’s latest reporting season will likely announce a telling maturation of the US shale industry according to Woodside Petroleum chief executive, Peter Coleman. “The market is feeling pretty positive and we think there will be strengthening of crude prices before the end of the year,” Coleman said on Thursday after the release of Woodside’s wholly predictable but encouraging third quarter production numbers . “Oil demand is up this year by 1.6 [million barrels a day] and is expected to be up another 1.4 next year. And the US reporting season is going to be very interesting,” he recommended. “It will signal whether people are still free to chase volumes or capital preservation has started in earnest. Anadarko is first out of the blocks with that buyback. This is going to tell us how far shale has got to […]