The decision was announced last October and came into effect in the new year. The Government of Lenín Moreno decided to leave the cartel, led by Saudi Arabia, to escape the procuction cuts, with which the organization intends to boost oil prices. Oil is the second largest source of income for Ecuador’s coffers.
Carsten Menke (Julius Baer) | While the extension of oil production cuts was confirmed at the last OPEC meeting, discord emerged between Saudi Arabia and Russia about whether even deeper production cuts would be needed. Oil prices came under pressure, reflecting renewed concerns about global growth. We see prices trading slightly below fundamentally justified levels.
Countries in the Declaration of Co-operation (DoC, also known as OPEC) met in Vienna last week and announced a 1.2mn b/d crude production cut from an October 2018 baseline. In the end, OPEC interests came out first, as expected, and the rest of the world came second.
Francisco Vidal (Intermoney) | The next few days will be interesting as EU leaders confront the future of the European project, although they will also have to deal with the latest developments on Brexit, and no doubt dedicate time to US commercial belligerence.
One of the more interesting stories that seems to have flown beneath the radar of the foreign exchange market this week was that the US government has quietly asked Saudi Arabia and some other OPEC producers to increase oil production by around 1 mn barrels per day, according to Simon Derrick Chief currency strategist of BNY Mellon.
For any investor who believes that $70/barrel is more or less the right price, then the European oil firms are currently fairly priced. Alphavalue recently upped their earnings forecasts to include $70/barrel as a new normality. This leaves the sector with an upside potential of +6% on a 6-month horizon.
The price-inventory apparent mismatch of crude oil matters to the extent that going long crude appears to be a crowded trade so that the risks are on the downside if it were to happen that the “confirmed” cuts have been more paper ones than real ones.
Julius Baer Research | Non-OPEC producers under the lead of Russia will join OPEC’s supply cuts, which was necessary for the deal to become effective. With the paperwork done, oil producers must now walk the talk. There are many buts and ifs and we remain sceptical if compliance with the quotas is sufficient to materially shift the oil market’s balance
OPEC’s first cut in production in eight years is not good news for the Spanish economy. Spain imports almost all the oil it consumes and has benefited enormously from the slump in the price of a barrel of this “black gold”. It’s estimated that every 10% drop in the price of oil allows for one-tenth of a percentage point improvement in Spanish GDP (1 billion euros). And the reverse is true when the price increases.
OPEC has finally agreed to cut production by nearly 1.2 million bpd from January and for 6 months, representing about 4.5% of global output. Now we need to ask two questions: will the cartel countries respect the agreement? What will happen with the recent investment deficit in the sector? Will it still be profitable for the big producers to extract oil?