Bunker prices to keep sliding next week, expert says
The Bunker Review is contributed by Marine Bunker Exchange
The oil price volatility has continued this week. Two dollars up one day and the next day two dollars down. The oil market has been trading on the same spot for some time now. Technically there is no trend. The market is today at GMT 14:09 Brent $48.26 (-0.32) and WTI $45.86 (-0.46)
The discount in price of oil for immediate delivery relative to that for delivery in a year, or contango, neared its largest diff in nearly two months this week, touching $7 a barrel.(Contango means that forward contractual prices are higher than today’s prices). This shows the sentiment of the market, hoping the supply and demand will be more in balance 6 months to 1 year from today.
Ample supply of North Sea crude, which underpins the benchmark futures price, has pushed physical prices to their lowest since June. The contango in Brent futures could widen more than the current levels when looking at the highly oversupplied present physical market.
Contributing to the generally bearish sentiment was an internal OPEC document seen by Reuters that showed weaker demand in the next few years for oil from the group.
OPEC oil ministers will meet on Dec. 4 to decide whether to extend their year-old strategy of allowing prices to fall to slow higher-cost rival supply.
OPEC, along with Russia, is unlikely to change tactics. OPEC and Russia will continue to produce as much as possible in order to squeeze out higher cost producers. Will it really work? The reduction in U.S. drillers is like a drop in the Ocean and will not change much as far as the oversupply is
concerned. The big three, Russia, OPEC and the U.S., must sit down together and sort out what can be done. As it is now they are all depleting their resources against very little money in the name of market shares.
The dollar surged to a three-month high and European and Asian stock markets dipped on Thursday as expectations hardened of the first rise in U.S. interest rates in almost a decade coming next month.
Federal Reserve chief Janet Yellen and two senior colleagues pointed to December as a "live possibility" for a rise, adding to signs that the U.S. central bank is again on the verge of moving after months of vacillating over the domestic and global economy's ability to deal with higher borrowing costs.
For the coming week bunker prices are expected to edge downward again after the recent rallies.
*MGO LS
All prices stated in USD / Mton
All time high Brent = $147.50 (July 11, 2008)
All time high Light crude (WTI) = $147.27 (July 11, 2008)
