Even as Baker Hughes reported a rise in the number of active drilling rigs in the United States on Friday, oil prices continued to see gains on Friday afternoon.
At 4:19pm EDT, WTI crude was still up 1.32% on the day at $56.97. Brent was still up over 1% on the day, at $59.44-dangerously close to the $60 psychological threshold for the benchmark.
Last week at this time, the spot price for Brent was just $55.04. The near $5 gain is due to a combination of factors, including a large crude oil inventory decrease in the United States, continuing OPEC+ production restraint, Aramco's price hike to crude for Europe, U.S. traders drunk on stimulus chatter, and whispers of an overall tightening oil market.
These are bullish signals indeed. But can this uptrend last amid lockdown extensions and oil demand that just isn't there yet?
When a stimulus deal is finalized, oil prices are expected to jump-this is certainly still bullish. But on the bearish side, oil demand is still lagging, and some analysts are not calling for a full rebound in demand for years-if ever.
The EIA, for one, doesn't see U.S. energy consumption rebounding fully for another eight years. That's certainly on the bearish side.
Will OPEC will be able hold back the flood of supply until that time? Can they afford not to? Russia is still itching to ramp up its oil production, leery of opening the door for U.S. shale producers. For now, Saudi Arabia is happy to take one for the team, resigned to curb production so others in the group will continue with at least some of the cuts. For now, OPEC's actions are bullish.
The EIA sees U.S. oil production setting new records, but not until 2023.
Goldman Sachs, however, is still bullish, calling for $65 Brent by mid-year, with WTI in the low $60s.
Rystad Energy, however, sees a price correction on the horizon.
"Many technical indicators are flashing red, so a price correction soon would not be unsurprising," Rystad said on Friday, according to Oilfield Technology.
By Julianne Geiger For Oilprice.com
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Julianne Geiger is a veteran editor, writer and researcher for Oilprice.com, and a member of the Creative Professionals Networking Group. More
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Comments
What matters is that oil prices are trending upwards underpinned by improving fundamentals in the global oil market, almost 100% compliance by OPEC+ members with the agreed production cuts, an expanding global rollout vaccination and accelerating depletion of global oil inventories in addition to growing demand for refined products in the United States and record-breaking crude oil imports by both China and India.
Furthermore, if Brent crude is going to hit $60 any moment now despite the fact that the bulk of the global economy is still in lockdown, it will certainly rise to $80 this year with the widening of the global rollout of vaccines.
I have been for a time projecting that Brent crude oil price is heading towards $60 a barrel in the first quarter of 2021 rising further to $70-$80 in the third quarter and averaging $60-$65 in 2021. Moreover, Global oil demand is projected to recover to pre-pandemic level of 101 million barrels a day (mbd) by the middle of 2021.
Furthermore, an oil price correction here and there is neither here nor there.
Dr Mamdouh G Salameh
International Oil Economist
Visiting Professor of Energy Economics at ESCP Europe Business School, London