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An effort by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to stabilize the oil market ended in failure on Friday, with Russia rejecting a plan for addition output cuts and sending prices for the commodity plummeting to their lowest levels in roughly three years.
Analysts said Russia may be betting that the lower prices will cause U.S. shale producers to slow output, but without OPEC+’s help to steady the market, U.S. benchmark prices could fall toward $30 a barrel as COVID-19 feeds a decline in demand for oil.
“Today’s outcome is psychological blow for the market, as the steep plunge in oil prices shows,” said Ann-Louise Hittle, vice president of macro oils at Wood Mackenzie, in emailed commentary Friday. “And the market is now facing the spectre of unrestrained production once the current OPEC+ agreement expires in March.”
OPEC on Thursday had proposed an additional output cut of 1.5 million barrels to the end of the year, under which OPEC members cutting 1 million barrels a day and Russia and other allied non-members responsible for a reduction of 500,000 barrels a day.
The talks ended without an agreement. Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said there is no more oil output deal between Russia, its allies and members of OPEC, according to a report from Reuters. He said that from April 1 and onward, Russia “nor any OPEC or non-OPEC country is required to make output cuts,” the report said.
The current OPEC+ agreement calls for a reduction of 1.7 million barrels, from an October 2018 baseline, through the end of March of this year. OPEC had also recommended extending that pact to the end of the year.
The failure to come to an agreement “represents the worst case scenario that could have happened,” said Manish Raj, chief financial officer at Velandera Energy. “The breakdown was a classic game theory outcome—each side stands to gain if the other side backs down. However, if neither side backs down, then they both lose.”
Raj said “Russia is certainly betting that price crash will cause U.S. production to crash, helping restore its dominance,” but that bet did not pan out well in 2014, when OPEC and Russia decided to defend market share instead of defending prices, “and only made the US producers more efficient thereafter.”
Total U.S. oil production climbed to a record 13.1 million barrels a day for the week ended Feb. 28, according to the Energy Information Administration.
Attack on U.S. shale?
U.S. shale oil and natural-gas drillers were under severe financial pressure even before the recent selloff in oil prices, said Ryan Fitzmaurice, commodities strategist at Rabobank. “Share prices across the exploration and production sector currently sit at or near all-time lows as a result of high debt levels, lack of free cash flow generation, and extremely poor investor sentiment with respect to the energy sector.”
Fitzmaurice said that Russia may be willing to “suffer through a period of low prices in order to deal a final blow to the US shale industry.”
Independent energy expert Anas Alhajji, however, argued that “the Russian position is illogical, even if they want to target shale [because] many shale producers are hedged”—reducing the risk of adverse price movements.
“If they go bankrupt, they comeback stronger with no debt,” said Alhajji.
Demand hit
At the same time, however, oil demand destruction is “almost unprecedented,” said Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis at the Oil Price Information Service, also known as OPIS by IHS Market. The spread of the COVID-19 epidemic has caused a slowdown in the global economy and with it, demand for oil.
IHS Markit expects first-quarter world oil demand to mark its largest quarterly volume decline in recorded history. It estimates world oil demand at 96 million barrels a day for the quarter, down 3.8 million barrels a day from a year earlier.
“Even if the alliance had agreed to the full 1.5 million bpd cut, that would only have addressed a portion of the demand destruction as a result of the coronavirus,” said Marshall Steeves, energy markets analyst at IHS Markit. “That could exceed 4 million bpd between the loss of Chinese demand, global jet travel, lower gasoline demand as a result of people working at home and decreased economic activity overall.”
Read:Transportation fuels sink, with jet fuel the ‘most susceptible’ to losses s COVID-19 tanks travel
Also read:Why OPEC’s proposed oil-production cut may not be enough to steady the market
Possibility of $30 oil
All hope is not lost, but prices could drop toward the $30 mark if OPEC+ does nothing more until its next official meeting on June 9-10 in Vienna.
There’s still the chance that OPEC+ continues its negotiations, possibly even Saturday, said James Williams, energy economist at WTRG Economics. If OPEC+ doesn’t reconsider over the weekend, prices are likely to move into the $30s a barrel, but stay above $35, he said. “Until we hear more from OPEC, it is all speculation.”
Williams added that he doesn’t expect to see much price recovery until May, and maybe not even then as it depends on how badly the U.S. and European economies are hurt.
On Friday, U.S. benchmark crude futures CLJ20, -10.19% lost 10.1% to settle at $41.28 a barrel, poised for the lowest finish since August 2016, according to Dow Jones Market Data. Global benchmark Brent crude BRNK20, +0.08% dropped 9.4% to $45.27, for the lowest settlement since June 2017.
“Without Russia, we may be looking at not just a plunge into the $30s but a test of the $26.05 low from 2016 [for WTI] if demand remains stressed by the virus,” said Steeves.
“It is not yet clear when its impact might peak despite recent signs of fewer new cases in China,” he said of COVID-19. “When that becomes true in the western world, volatility might abate.”
“OPEC is no longer the driver of global oil markets that it once was, though obviously still influential, said Steeves. “Unfortunately for them, the breakdown of the alliance will further erode their market power.”
