martes, 27 de enero de 2015

martes, enero 27, 2015
Davos oil barons eye $150 crude as investment slump incubates future crunch

Roller coaster move in prices is destructive for the oil industry and is leading to investment cuts that may store up serious trouble for the future

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, in Davos

7:46PM GMT 21 Jan 2015


Rampant speculation by hedge funds and a rare confluence of short-term shocks have driven the price of oil far below its natural clearing level, coiling the springs for a fresh spike this year that may catch markets badly off-guard once again.

"The price will rebound and we will go back to normal very soon," said Abdullah Al-Badri, Opec's veteran secretary-general. "Yes, there is an over-supply, but fundamentals don't justify this 50pc fall in price."
 
Experts from across the world - from both the West and the petro-powers - said the slump in fresh investment in 2015 is setting the stage for a much tighter balance of supply and demand, and possibly a fresh oil crunch.
 
Mr Al-Badri said he had been through price swings before but recovery may be swifter today than in past cyclical troughs. "This time we have to be very careful to handle this crisis right. We must keep investing, and not lay off experienced people as we did last time," he told the World Economic Forum in Davos.
 
Claudio Descalzi, chief executive of Italy's oil giant ENI, said the last phase of the price crash from $75 a barrel to around $45 was driven by wild moves on the derivatives markets. Traders with "long" positions effectively capitulated once it became clear that Opec was not going to cut output to shore up prices.

This led to abrupt switch to massive "short" positions instead. "These contracts are 15 or 20 times the physical market," he said.

Mr Descalzi said the roller coaster move in prices is destructive for the oil industry and is leading to investment cuts that may store up serious trouble for the future. "What we need is stability: a central bank for oil. Prices could jump to $150 or even $200 over the next four or five years," he said.

Khalid Al Falih, president of Saudi Aramco, the world's biggest oil producer, said the mix of financial leverage and the end of quantitative easing had "accelerated" the collapse in prices but the slide has lost touch with reality. "We're going to see higher demand this year. Investors are shaken and will now be more careful about committing money to mega-projects in the oil and gas industry," he said.

Fatih Birol, the chief economist for the International Energy Agency, said the dramatic crash since June has been caused by a unique set of events. Supply surged by 2m barrels a day (b/d) last year - the highest in 30 years - at exactly the same moment that China slowed sharply, Japan fell back into recession and Europe's recovery stalled.

"Oil at $45 is a temporary phenomenon, so don't get too relaxed. We see upward pressures on prices by the end of this year. Oil investments are going to fall by 15pc or about $100bn dollars this year," he said. Mr Birol said this could combine with a jump in demand to create a much tighter market later this year.
 
Russia's deputy prime minister, Arkady Dvorkovich, said the bottom is in sight. "Oil is not going to go to minus $40. There is a level where it will stop and that is not far away. It's close," he said.
 
For now his country is gritting its teeth, relying on its reserve funds to plug holes in the budget and cushion the downturn. "We are not going to cut the budget by half, but by 10pc to 15pc," he said.
 
"We will use our reserves for the priorities that are most important. For this quarter, the stability of the banking sector is key," he said.

Mr Dvorkovich did not dispute warnings from the International Monetary Fund that Russia's economy will contract by 5pc this year and is now in grave crisis. "At interest rates of 17pc it is impossible to do any business in Russia. We have extreme inflation and we have to reduce it, but if there is no real trust in the policies, inflation will go up whatever you do," he said.

He said oil prices have been pushed below their "equilibrium level" deliberately for political reasons, hinting that $70 to $80 would be the non-political price in today's market. "There are governments that don't want to reach that level yet, the Saudi government as well," he said.

Opec's Mr Al-Badri denied vehemently that there was any political motive behind its refusal to cut output. "This is not directed against US tight oil, and not directed against Russia. It is a pure economic decision," he said.

Mr Al-Badri said Opec had kept production steady at 30m barrels a day for a decade, while non-Opec states and US shale had added 7m barrels per day. "Why should low cost producers cut their output to make way for high cost producers? It doesn't make any sense," he said.

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