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Goldman, Commerzbank cut oil forecasts on oversupply

Goldman Sachs and Germany’s Commerzbank slashed their forecasts for oil prices on Friday, citing global oversupply and worries about top energy consumer China. U.S. investment bank Goldman, closely followed by many investors including commodities funds, said it expects oil prices to tumble further this year on rising OPEC production and resilient non-OPEC supply, which is seen outstripping demand. "The oil market is even more oversupplied than we had expected and we forecast this surplus to persist in 2016," Goldman said in a note titled "Lower for even longer". It said crude oil prices could fall as low as $20 a barrel, although this was not its "base case". Joining a long list of banks cutting price projections, Goldman Sachs lowered its 2016 forecast for U.S. crude to $45 a barrel from $57, and said it saw 2016 Brent prices at $49.50 a barrel, down from its earlier $62 forecast. […]

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Oil-Price Slump Could Force U.S., Non-OPEC Suppliers to Make Deep Cuts

American oil producers will be forced to make drastic cuts in 2016 because of stubbornly low crude prices, an influential energy monitor said Friday, giving Saudi Arabia a chance to regain some of its lost clout in global markets. Oil prices that last month reached their lowest levels since the financial crisis have “dimmed the prospects for a recovery in U.S. drilling activity,” the International Energy Agency said in its closely watched monthly oil market report. The agency said tight oil—a type of expensive-to-pump crude that has driven American production in recent years—would decline by 400,000 barrels a day in 2016, a fall that already began in July. Along with expected drops in Russian and North Sea output in 2016, production outside of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries could see the steepest cuts since the fall of the Soviet Union, the IEA said. The agency’s predictions are […]

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Oil Market Report

mb/d World Oil Demand *Please note that these Highlights are from the latest Oil Market Report, which is released in full to subscribers only – according to this schedule each month . Non subscribers get free access to the latest Highlights on this schedule, however the full Oil Market Report is released to the public two weeks after the report is released to subscribers. If you would like to receive the full report with accompanying charts and graphs on the day of publication please subscribe or contact the subscription manager . Oil prices sank to six-year lows in August as a supply overhang grew and concern deepened over the health of the global economy, especially in China. After rebounding on a slew of economic and fundamental data, prices turned volatile in September. Brent was last trading at $48.10/bbl with NYMEX WTI at $45.20/bbl. Oil’s latest tumble is expected to […]

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IEA: Most recent OMR shows oil markets tightening

Oil markets are tightening, as stockpiling gradually slows and inventories start to draw in the second half of 2016, the International Energy Agency forecast in its most recent monthly Oil Market Report. “Notable builds are still anticipated, but will be significantly lower than during the previous six quarters up to the second quarter of 2015 when global stocks rose by a notional 715 million b/d,” IEA said. Demand In this report, IEA said it expects global oil demand growth to climb to a 5-year high of 1.7 million b/d in 2015 before moderating to 1.4 million b/d in 2016, thanks to lower oil prices and a strengthening macroeconomic backdrop. These estimates are 210,000 b/d and 200,000 b/d, respectively, above last month’s report. “Higher estimates for 3Q15 demand, 400,000 b/d higher at 95 million b/d, were chiefly attributable to raised July numbers for the US, China, Europe, and Russia,” IEA […]

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World Bank Confident Funding to Back Climate-Change Deal Will Be Secured

MACTAN, Philippines—The World Bank’s special envoy on climate change on Friday expressed confidence that industrialized countries will open their wallets when they gather in Paris later this year to bankroll a global strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. “There will be a finance package and it will be a generous one,” World Bank Vice President Rachel Kyte told The Wall Street Journal at the sidelines of the meeting of Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation ministers in this central Philippine island. Ms. Kyte said talks on the financing package are continuing but she declined to quote the potential size of the financing package. Multilateral financial institutions, including the World Bank, already provide annually a combined $28 billion for projects intended to help developing countries mitigate the impact of and adapt to climate change, she noted. French President François Hollande last month anchored a final deal on climate change during the November-December […]

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Antarctica to Melt Without Curbs on Fossil Fuels, Study Finds

Burning all the Earth’s remaining coal, oil and natural gas would trigger enough warming to melt the entire Antarctic ice shelf, eventually obliterating coastal regions around the world, researchers said in a report Friday. That worst-case scenario would be a long way off — several thousand years, according to computer simulations published by the journal Science Advances. Still, the results are a reminder of the potentially cataclysmic impacts of an Antarctic meltdown, according to the German, U.S. and U.K. researchers. About 1 billion people live in coastal areas that would be swamped if the entire ice sheet was lost, they said. “The west Antarctic ice sheet may already have tipped into a state of unstoppable ice loss, whether as a result of human activity or not,” Anders Levermann, of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, said in a statement. “If we want to pass on cities like Tokyo, […]

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Fossil-Fuel License Limits Seen Viable Option to Emissions Cap

Limiting fossil-fuel supplies to combat climate change may be more attractive for governments than trying to negotiate a global emissions cap, according to Andy Howard, an adviser to Critical Resource Strategy & Analysis Ltd. Nations producing coal, oil and natural gas could protect revenue by applying “supply-side discipline” such as handing out fewer drilling licenses, Howard said by phone Wednesday. London-based commodities consultant Critical Resource last month set up a panel headed by former BP Plc chief executive officer John Browne to advise the fossil-fuel industry on United Nations climate talks. Even as nations and the energy industry produce less fossil fuel, “they can still make more money out of it” and help protect the climate as prices rise, said Howard, a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. managing director. “If the industry could act in a disciplined way, it could operate profitably at a lower volume.” Andy Howard — […]

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Assad Regime Inflames Refugee Crisis

TRIPOLI, Lebanon—As hundreds of thousands of refugees flee Syria for Europe, the regime of President Bashar al-Assad has been coming down hard on those who have stayed behind, particularly people viewed as potential threats. Ahmed al-Hamid is one of them. The 37-year-old doctor said security agents picked him up in late 2013 for his role establishing field hospitals in opposition areas in Homs and Damascus. After six months in jail—where he said he was beaten with batons and whips while strapped to boards—Dr. Hamid was released by a sympathetic judge. Last year, he fled to nearby Lebanon, joining an exodus of professionals, dissidents and others who were driven out for being on the wrong side of the Syrian regime. “There is no order, per se, but all conditions are being put in place so that people do not dare go back,” says Dr. Hamid, a stocky man with a […]

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Exclusive: Iran to take Parchin military site samples with IAEA present – diplomats

U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, German Foreign Minister Frank Walter Steinmeier, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang… United Nations inspectors will be present with Iranian technicians as they take samples from a key military site, two Western diplomats said, undercutting an objection by U.S. Republicans to the nuclear deal between Iran and world powers. The diplomats were familiar with details of a confidential arrangement between Iran and the U.N. nuclear watchdog for inspections at the Parchin site, where some countries suspect nuclear weapons-related tests may have taken place. Iran has denied that allegation, but agreed to accept comprehensive International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections of its suspect sites as part of the historic July deal in exchange for an easing of international sanctions. An August report by the Associated […]

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Next Steps in Putting Iran Nuclear Deal Into Effect

Photo President Obama at the White House on Thursday, discussing the Iran nuclear accord. Democrats cleared the way for the deal to go into effect after a key procedural vote in the Senate. Credit Stephen Crowley/The New York Times WASHINGTON — With Senate Democrats blocking passage of a resolution disapproving of the Iran nuclear deal, the attention will shift from the halls of Congress to the nations and international agencies that must put the accord into effect. Here’s what happens next. Q. What is the first thing that will happen? A. The agreement is to be formally adopted on Oct. 19 — 90 days after it was endorsed by the United Nations Security Council . That is the day Iran and the six world powers that concluded the accord — the United States, Germany, Britain, France, Russia and China — are to start taking steps to comply, although most […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple