JPMorgan's head of EMEA energy equity research, Christyan Malek, warned markets on Friday that the recent Brent price surge could continue upwards to $150 per barrel by 2026, according to a new research report.
Several catalysts went into the $150 price warning, including capacity shocks, an energy supercycle-and of course, efforts to push the world further away from fossil fuels.
Most recently, crude oil prices have surged on the back of OPEC+ production cuts, mostly led by Saudi Arabia who almost singlehanded took 1 million bpd out of the market, followed by a fuel export ban from Russia. Increased crude demand paired up with the supply restrictions, boosting crude oil prices and contributing to rising consumer prices.
Brent prices were trading around $93.55 on Friday afternoon, but Malek expects Brent prices between $90 and $110 next year, and even higher in 2025.
"Put your seatbelts on. It's going to be a very volatile supercycle," Malek told Bloomberg on Friday, as the analyst warned about OPEC's production cuts and a lack of investment in new oil production.
JPMorgan said in February this year that Oil prices were unlikely to reach $100 per barrel this year unless there was some major geopolitical event that rattled markets, warning that OPEC+ could add in as much as 400,000 bpd to global supplies, with Russia's oil exports potentially recovering by the middle of this year. At the time, JPMorgan was estimating 770,000 bpd in demand growth from China-less than what the IEA and OPEC were estimating.
JPMorgan now sees the global supply and demand imbalance at 1.1 million bpd in 2025, but growing to a 7.1 million bpd deficit in 2030 as robust demand continues to butt up against limited supply.
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
Julianne Geiger is a veteran editor, writer and researcher for Oilprice.com, and a member of the Creative Professionals Networking Group. More
Comments
Whilst the global oil market is tight with a hint of approaching imbalance and possible shortages, a Brent crude oil price of $150 a barrel has no basis in reality now or for the foreseeable future.
The only circumstance that we may see $150 oil is if it was proven without doubt that the Saudi voluntary production cut has nothing to do with the market and everything to do with Saudi production difficulties.
90% of Saudi production has for the last 70 years been coming from five giant fast-depleting and aging oilfields (Ghawar, Safaniya, Hanifa, Khurais and Zuluf) all of which are more than 70 years old and are being kept producing by an injection of billions of barrels of water. That is why a reduced Saudi production could become a permanent feature of the market.
By 2030 I project that Saudi Arabia could be left with an estimated 120,000-400,000 barrels a day (b/d) to export at which time it would have virtually ceased to remain an exporter.
Dr Mamdouh G Salameh
International Oil Economist
Global Energy Expert