Oil Prices ///
This year's oil rally has paved the way for the alliance to unleash some barrels, with OPEC Secretary-General Mohammad Barkindo saying on Tuesday that both the wider economic outlook and oil-market fundamentals continue to improve.
While the usual differences between Russia and Saudi Arabia are present, all sides are ready to increase production, putting OPEC on track to implement the majority of the 1.5 million barrels per day output increase that’s up for debate on Thursday.
The leaders of Saudi Aramco and Chevron see the market for oil and gas improving this year, with some momentum in the back half. But that outlook is tempered by the fact that the pandemic has forced some changes to the way that business is conducted.
It’s not the first time India, one of the biggest buyers of the producer group’s crude, has urged the Organization of Exporting Petroleum Countries and its partners to pump more oil.
OPEC and its allies have been constricting oil supplies since the pandemic crushed demand almost a year ago. To disperse the lingering stockpile surplus, the Saudis pledged extra crude reductions during February and March.
While oil majors and publicly-traded counterparts are mostly sticking to the mantra of drilling discipline, private operators’ ambitious growth plans present the OPEC cartel with a wild card as prices rebound and it attempts to boost its own oil production.
The alliance gathers on Thursday and is expected to loosen the taps after prices got off to their best ever start to a year. But it’s unclear how robustly the group will act, with the Saudi Arabian energy minister calling for producers to remain “extremely cautious.”
The situation could worsen as Big Oil makes another round of deep spending cuts, leaving consequences both for the oil market, which needs more supply from the OPEC cartel in the coming years, and the economic stability of a region that’s dependent on petroleum revenue.
With the need for more oil supply evident, traders expect the OPEC+ coalition, led by Saudi Arabia and Russia, will agree to increase crude production when it meets on March 4, reversing some of the output cuts made last year. But it’s unclear if the group will act vigorously enough.
Oil fell the most since November with a stronger dollar and concerns surrounding inflation weighing on crude’s best start to the year on record. Yet, the U.S. crude benchmark still managed to post a nearly 18% gain this month as inventories worldwide tighten and pockets of demand return.
Last year’s crash in oil prices and China’s rapid rebound from the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic set the stage for a flurry of crude purchases. However, stockpiling has leveled off as oil prices rebounded and storage space runs out.
The oil futures curve is continuing to indicate tightness. The market is in a backwardation of almost $6 a barrel for the next 12 months, a structure that indicates scarce supplies.
Key players in the oil market have been talking up the rising prices in the coming months, with some even floating the prospect of $100 crude in the next year or two as the global economy recovers from the pandemic.
The world’s largest oil company is mulling asset disposals as a way of maintaining its $75 billion of annual dividend payments, almost all of which go to the Saudi government. That payout -- the biggest of any listed company in the world -- became harder to sustain after the coronavirus pandemic caused crude prices to plunge last year.
Oil has surged this year after Saudi Arabia pledged to unilaterally cut 1 million barrels a day in February and March, with Goldman Sachs Group predicting the crude rally will accelerate as demand outpaces global supply.
Hayal Ahmadzada, Socar’s chief trading officer, said the glut of excess oil stocks that built up in 2020 in response to the pandemic will be fully drawn down by the summer. At the same time, soaring prices for steel used in pipes, wells and fittings as well as the high cost of capital for producers will crimp a meaningful supply response by an already hobbled industry even as demand returns.
The market is likely underestimating the impact from an unprecedented polar blast that hit the central U.S. last week, while some 40 million barrels of February oil output, largely from the Permian basin, will not be produced due to the recent Texas freeze.
A robust recovery in demand from the Covid-19 pandemic had pushed prices to the highest settlement in more than a year last Wednesday, and Goldman sees the rally accelerating as consumption outpaces supply from OPEC and shale.
Prepayment deals are rare in the oil world and this was meant to improve Iraq’s financial situation. While the government is still struggling, its position has improved on soaring oil prices, largely thanks to the rollout of coronavirus vaccines.
Ten months after slashing crude production when Covid-19 crushed global demand, OPEC and its allies are still withholding 7 million barrels a day from the market. It's been a sacrifice, and now the group must chart a path forward that won't erase hard-fought oil price gains.