Thursday, March 05, 2020

Events overtaking OPEC as 1mbpd+ cut deepening is touted

After a meeting that went long into the night, OPEC+ is in for another hectic few days of haggling as it works out how to respond to the demand slump being caused by the coronavirus outbreak. 

OPEC+ technical committee's recommendation was for an expansion of its ongoing cuts of 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd) by 600,000 bpd.

But before the evening was done last night, a number as high as 1-1.2million bpd was being touted around, something that has held firm for much of this (Mar 5) morning and afternoon. Quite frankly, events have overtaken OPEC and demand forecasters are shooting blind at the moment, as the Oilholic noted via Forbes at IPWeek

But given the global proportions of the coronavirus spread, potential for $30 per barrel prices and demand growth shrinkage, Wall Street is finally waking up to the magnitude of the demand destruction that could happen. Here's yours truly's latest Forbes take on the subject

Lets see how the day unfolds. But for a deepening of that magnitude Saudi Arabia's headline production will have to drop below ~9 million bpd; and should that happen it'll be a bit of whopper facilitated by Saudi Crown Prince and Powerbroker-in-chief Mohammed Bin Salman! Keep reading, keep it 'crude'! 

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© Gaurav Sharma 2020. Photo: Ministerial Limos arrive at OPEC Secretariat in Vienna, Austria © Gaurav Sharma, Mar 5, 2020. 

Wednesday, March 04, 2020

Crude arrival in Vienna in the age of Coronavirus

The Oilholic has arrived in Vienna for the 178th 'Extraordinary' meeting of OPEC Ministers, only to be told that analysts and journalists will not be allowed into the Secretariat to mitigate chances of the spread of the coronavirus.

It seems the conference and its goings-on would be 'live streamed', and all of us would be moved to the confines of a meeting room at the Palais Hansen Kempinski with no media briefings and contact with oil ministers. Still old friends and diehards have turned for some outdoor coffee and cookies outside OPEC HQ.
 And here's the agenda for the next few days:
That's all for the moment folks! More from Vienna soon; but in the interim, keep reading, keep it 'crude'!

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To email: gaurav.sharma@oilholicssynonymous.com

© Gaurav Sharma 2020. 

Friday, February 28, 2020

A right royal crude market hammering


Coronavirus jitters have delivered a right royal hammering to the crude oil market, with the pace of bearish blows picking up considerably over the last 48 hours. Both major benchmarks are now over 25% below their 2020 peak achieved in the wake of the US-Iran skirmish at the turn of the new trading year. 

Key issue in finding a price floor stems from the fact that many, in fact most, crude demand forecasters are shooting blind, as the Oilholic wrote on Forbes.com. The local viral outbreak in China soon became a regional epidemic, and is now – in the view of some – a global pandemic in a matter of weeks. Complete dataset of the virus' economic impact will be trickling in soon, and there is market conjecture around that the global economy could be heading for a recession. 

Were that to be the case, and the fact that the virus has reached 50 countries, could result in crude demand destruction on an unprecedented scale, as yours truly via on Rigzone. So where from here? No one really knows, and unless OPEC+ provides temporary reprieve via a production at its next meeting scheduled for March 5-6, price floor would be hard to pin down. We could see benchmarks tumbling to as low as $30 per barrel; something that has indeed happened in the not too distant past. 

For now retail, travel, airline and energy stocks continue to take a hammering. In fact, the energy sector is now down 34% from 52-week closing high, while both Brent and WTI futures look likely to post their worst weeks in recent memory (last seen between December 2008 and January 2009 at the height of the global financial crisis). 

That was also the verdict of many yours truly interacted at the recently concluded International Petroleum Week in London. The event itself looked like it fell victim to the coronavirus as understandably Chinese and indeed many overseas delegates stayed away. 

Only major energy CEOs in attendance were those of BP and Vitol, and most attendees were pretty pessimistic about the oil price direction. Nonetheless, dialogues on energy transition over the course of three days proved to be very interesting as the sector continues its attempt at a low-carbon future. That's all for the moment folks! Keep reading, keep it 'crude'!

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© Gaurav Sharma 2020. Graphs 1 & 2: Brent & WTI futures price movement 3M to Feb 27, 2020.

Monday, January 27, 2020

Solid crash course on global oil markets & trading

Of late, the global oil market has seen what can aptly be described as range-bound volatility. No matter what the bulls throw at it, movements of both Brent, the global proxy benchmark, and WTI, the main North American benchmark, have flattered to deceive when it comes to price spikes past $70 per barrel. 

Yet at same time, the price floor has largely held at $50 and barring a global slowdown, few are predicting a Q1 2016-esque slump below $30. Market variables are changing too, not least tweets from US President Donald Trump on oil prices and copious amounts of American light sweet crude flooding the market. 

In such a setting, should understanding the market, making calculated guesstimates on price direction and trading black gold tickle your fancy, be it via a position in the market or a spreadbet, then market commentator Simon Watkins' latest book – An Insider’s Guide To Trading The Global Oil Market – would be well worth your while. In a work of just under 360 pages, the author sums ups the runners and riders, speculators and chancers, players and detractors who have a profound impact on a sentiment driven commodity like crude oil. 

There's detailed analysis, fully illustrated charts linked to points made by the author and tips aplenty. The treatment of risk/reward management is great and Watkins has also taken the trouble of covering the history of the oil business in a concise fashion to give readers a sound understanding of key production centres, demand drivers and geopolitics. 

Recent developments in the China, Middle East, Russia and the US, and the cycle oil cartel OPEC finds itself trapped in, have been covered in some detail providing the essential padding to the outlined oil market history. 

Generic trading methodologies, strategies and cross-market opportunities deployed by proprietary traders around the world as outlined by Watkins make for an engaging narrative. Among the allied trades, the author's take on Saudi Aramco following its IPO, chimes with those in the short-sellers' camp, including this blogger, who note the various complications and lack of transparency associated with the so-called mother of all IPOs that promised so much internationally, but ended up a with mere single-digit percentage float on the domestic Saudi market. 

Overall, Watkins' impressive work cuts through market exaggerations designed to shift sentiment one way or another, and makes readers work towards developing their convictions while being cautious of manipulations, e.g. casual dropping of price rallies that lack legs, black swan events that are anything but, and risk premiums that barely last a trading week instead of having a tangible price supporting impact. 

Ultimately, as the author opines: "If the intricacies are understood, the oil market is a trader's nirvana; it offers far and away the most opportunities out of any other market for high returns." And to that effect, he's provided a very solid crash course that could serve both beginners and those with market exposure looking to brush up and refocus. 

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© Gaurav Sharma 2020. Photo: Front Cover - An Insider’s Guide To Trading The Global Oil Market  © ADVFN Books, 2019.

Monday, January 20, 2020

Summing up the geopolitics heavy last 4 weeks!

The end of the previous trading year and the start of the new one is usually a slow burner for crude  oil traders. However, the four or so weeks from Christmas Eve of 2019 all the way up to what's fast approaching late January of 2020, have turned out to be anything but!

As it transpired, skirmishes in Iraq between Iran-backed militia and US forces heightened Middle East tensions over Christmas. What then followed took the market by surprise. In the small hours of January 2, the New Year got its first geopolitical jolt, after a US airstrike killed Qasem Soleimani, an IranianGeneral of the country's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and commander of its Quds Force, a division primarily responsible for extraterritorial military and clandestine operations.

In the Oilholic's opinion, courtesy US President Donald Trump, it was the biggest targeted political killing in the region since that of another Iranian protégé - Lebanese Islamic Jihad Organization's founder and then Hezbollah's second-in-command ImadMughniyeh in 2008; a man widely thought to have masterminded the 1983 US embassy bombing in Beirut.

As speculators piled into the oil futures market with long calls, expecting the inevitable Iranian response, Tehran duly obliged via missile strikes on Iraqi bases housing US troops that it gave prior warning of and the attack caused no casualties. However, as has now been acknowledged, the Iranians mistakenly shot down a civilian airliner tragically killing 176 innocent people on board.

The phoney oil price rally also came and went as soon as Iran's phoney response to the US airstrike became evident. While there is no shortage of speculators, ample supplies in a crude market that has gotten used to living with a Middle East in flames has tempered any rash calls to the upside since.

Rising woes in Libya, Turkey's entry into an already messy civil war that's reached the gates of Tripoli and a subsequent force majeure of the country's oil exports that has followed in recent days, after the US-Iran episode, also offers such a case in point. The market is coping and the oil price is going to be kept honest courtesy ample supplies, especially of light sweet crude oil, as the Oilholic opined in a recent Rigzone column.

All things considered, 2020 could see Brent lurk in the $70-75 range, while the WTI could oscillate between $63 and $68, as yours truly noted, even if recent events have surely made for a very hectic four weeks for oil market observers. Let's leave it at that for now.

Away from all this, the Oilholic also had the pleasure of listing to Royal Dutch Shell's electric car driving Chief Financial Officer Jessica Uhl at a Reuters Breaking Views event in London on January 16. The oil giant's finance boss offered up some choice quotes on the evening, few of which are embedded here via yours truly's Twitter feed below (@The_Oilholic).
And that’s all for the moment folks! Keep reading, keep it ‘crude’!

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© Gaurav Sharma 2020. Photo: Oil pipeline © Cairn.