Explanation:
- The price of oil is not only experiencing a few weeks of extreme volatility. In recent times, even the divergences within the oil market itself have exploded. This situation is evident in today's session. A barrel of Brent has come to trade with slight advances at the same time that the barrel of West Texas type sank as much as 8%.
The bears clearly focus their focus on the price of the West Texas type barrel, the benchmark in the US. The crash worsens today to another 8%, and plunges its price to $ 18, its lowest levels in 18 years.
The collapse thus exceeds 60% in just a month and a half, since the OPEC summit at the beginning of March ended with the breaking of the pact with Russia to maintain production cuts.
Unlike the West Texas type barrel, the European benchmark Brent barrel holds up well above its recent lows. Its price today minimizes the downward pressures and remains close to $ 28.
The wave of sales is concentrated in the price of West Texas. Analysts emphasize that due to the boom in shale oil, the US has become the largest oil producer in the world, and in the current context it will find enormous difficulties to dispose of its production due to the lack of demand, both domestic and for the export.The worst month in history for the oil industry, as advanced this week by the International Energy Agency (IEA), poses a logistical threat to the sector in the US, given the limitation and costs of storing oil.
- first quarter) put oil market operators on guard about the impact of the coronavirus crisis on crude consumption.
- OPEC yesterday forecast a drop in demand in April of 20 million barrels a day. This figure rises to 29 million barrels per day according to IEA estimates, about 30% of pre-crisis production. Given the surplus of crude that will flood the markets, the IEA warned that "never before" has storage capacity been so pushed to the limit.
- Forecasts of a collapse in demand in April far exceed the historical cuts of about 10 million barrels per day approved by the so-called OPEC + (OPEC plus allies such as Russia). Furthermore, the entry into force of this decline will not take place until May 1.
- As analysts point out, despite the additional cuts expected in other producing countries, including the US, and commitments to increase purchases for strategic oil reserves, the decline in supply will not be able to neutralize the magnitude of the collapse. on the demand.
