据2月24日Investing.com报道，牛顿定律显示，上升和下降是相对的，原油价格也挺过了一次又一次致命的考验。不过，新冠肺炎疫苗推出的速度远不理想，加上美国经济复苏的脆弱性，让看涨石油的人士感到不安。
值得注意的是，与一年前相比，全球驾车出行、乘飞机出行和乘船旅行的人数持续减少，因此，做长期石油投资的投资者对汽油、航空燃油和重油需求疲软丝毫不关心。自1月底以来，美国原油每周都在减少，根据政府相关政策，预计未来几个月炼油商将有更多的需求，因此原油库存出现下降。
除了中国和印度，在某种程度上，世界其他地区，特别是美国，炼油商的潜在需求超过了最终燃料用户的需求。然而，原油和汽油等燃料产品的价格都处于疫情爆发前的高点，但这并不是说石油交易商完全忽视了市场上的所有负面因素。
上周五，基准价格出现了自1月中旬以来的最大单日跌幅，美国西德克萨斯中质原油价格下跌2%，伦敦布伦特原油价格下跌1.6%，原因是人们担心，德克萨斯州炼厂生产的中断，可能会导致炼油厂停产，从而堆积原油库存。
但这样的价格下跌很少，与10月底以来西德克萨斯中质原油和布伦特原油价格暴涨至少70%的巨大涨幅相比，相差甚远。
要知道，每一次下滑都伴随着更高的反弹。
通常情况下，任何大幅下跌的价格都会被随后一两个交易日更大的反弹所抵消。例如，周一WTI对美国1.9万亿美元疫情救助法案的乐观情绪大涨4%，盖过了上周五的抛售。
事实上，正是对这一刺激措施的预期，债券购买热潮和接近零的利率，导致市场出现了大量廉价资金。其结果是，从股票到几乎所有种类的大宗商品，从即期交易到对冲基金和机构基金经理的各类投资者所产生的购买，都出现了压倒性的反弹。
由于大宗商品的涨势一直是靠这笔丰厚的收入支撑的，因此，当流入市场的资金达到投资者心目中设定的某种暂时性峰值时，大宗商品的涨势可能也会受到冲击。
实际上，一旦刺激计划在国会获得通过，油价可能会出现回调。更糟糕的是，如果该法案由于某种原因在参议院搁浅。在那之前，可以认为，不会发生任何有意义或长期的石油抛售。
除了让尽可能多的美国人接种疫苗外，拜登一直高度关注经济刺激法案，将其列为他上任100天内的首要议程项目。
3月中旬的刺激目标可能是油价上涨的信号。参议院多数党领袖查克·舒默(Chuck Schumer)将3月14日定为拜登的疫情法案签署为法律的目标。这也可能是油价上涨达到短期峰值，并开始大幅回落的目标。
当然，这些都不是铁板钉钉的时期，未来三周的能源价格也可能朝任何一个方向走。美银美林(Bank of America Merrill Lynch)预计，到第一季度末，布伦特原油价格将升至每桶70美元。与此同时，高盛(Goldman Sachs)认为，到第三季度，全球原油基准价格将达到每桶75美元。
未来一两周潜在的原油库存增加可能会对油价构成压力，尤其是如果德克萨斯州的炼油厂需要比预期更长的时间才能从30年来最严重的暴风雪中复苏，将对美国能源造成严重冲击。
值得一提的是，新的欧佩克+协议，以及每桶65美元的油价对美国页岩产业的影响。
俄罗斯已经在推动下周对扩大后的欧佩克+的生产协议进行月度审议时大幅提高产量，莫斯科是该组织的主要盟友。当欧盟将于4月召开会议，制定新的产量水平时，沙特阿拉伯将不可避免地想要取消额外减产100万桶的做法。
从背景来看，沙特阿拉伯和俄罗斯一直能够控制住竞争，并坚持承诺减产。总而言之，欧佩克+仍保留着超过600万桶/天的石油储备产能。因此，根据国际能源署(International Energy Agency)最新的月度报告，全球石油库存将在年中回到5年平均水平。去年夏天，随着需求大幅下降，全球石油库存一度创下历史纪录。
欧佩克+的增产可能刺激美国页岩油生产商在一年内首次提高产量，自2020年3月创下1310万桶/天的纪录以来，美国页岩油产量一直在下降。Smith指出，虽然页岩钻井公司仍处于现金节约模式，但WTI和布伦特原油价格接近每桶65美元的情况肯定会鼓励他们增加产量。
如果油价进入抛售阶段，SK Dixit驻印度Kolkata的分析师Sunil Kumar Dixit给出了一些线索，他认为WTI将低至每桶51.60美元，布伦特原油低至每桶58.30美元
王佳晶 摘译自 Investing.com
原文如下：
Close Of Stimulus Window Might Be Cue For Oil Correction
Newton’s Law says what goes up, must come down. Those long oil don’t want to hear that, of course.
Like the proverbial multi-lived cat, the rally in crude oil has outlasted one fatal test after another.
The far from desirable pace of the COVID-19 vaccine rollouts and the fragility of the US recovery from the pandemic are two examples of cautionary developments that have not bothered oil bulls one bit.
What’s notable is the indifference shown by the long-oil community to the anemic demand for gasoline, jet fuel and heavy fuel oils as the world continues to take fewer drives, flights and cruises, respectively, compared to a year ago.
This same group instead points to the weekly drawdowns in US crude seen since the end of January. The declines in crude inventories are occurring as refiners max out fuel products in anticipation of more demand in the coming months based on the immunization targets of the Biden administration and other governments.
Except for China—and to an extent, India—the rest of the world, especially the United States, is seeing more implied demand from refiners than demand ultimately from end-users of fuels. Yet, prices of both crude and fuel products like gasoline are trading at pre-pandemic highs.
This isn’t to say oil traders have completely ignored all the negatives in the market.
Last Friday, benchmark prices fell their most in a single day since mid-January, with US West Texas Intermediate crude losing 2% and London’s Brent 1.6%, on worries that the Arctic blast that disrupted production in Texas could extend to refinery outages that pile up crude stocks.
But such price declines are few and far between the otherwise humongous gains that have bloated the value of WTI and Brent by at least 70% since the end of October.
Each Slide Followed By Even Higher Rally
Often, any considerable slide in prices is offset by an even greater rally in the subsequent session or two. Friday’s selloff, for instance, was eclipsed by Monday’s 4% jump in WTI on optimism over Biden’s proposed $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill.
In fact, it’s expectations over this stimulus, combined with the bond-buying bonanza and near-zero interest rates of the Federal Reserve since the start of the pandemic, that has created a flood of cheap money in the markets. The result has been an overpowering rally in equities to commodities of almost all kinds, from buying generated by investors of all types, from day-traders to hedge funds and institutional money managers.
Since this gravy train is what has been keeping the commodities rally chugging, it’s likely that its run might also hit a bump when the flow of money to the markets reaches some sort of a temporal peak set in the minds of investors.
In practical terms, a correction in oil might be triggered once the window for Biden’s stimulus closes with its passage through Congress. Or worse, if the bill falters for some reason in the Senate, where Democrats backing the president have an effective majority of just one. Until then, it might be safe to assume that no meaningful or prolonged selloff in oil will happen.
Biden has been laser-focused on the stimulus bill, making it the number one agenda item of his first 100 days in office, aside from immunizing as many Americans as possible. And the cheerleaders in both commodities and on Wall Street—notwithstanding the NASDAQ-led selloff
of the past two days—have thrown their lot in with the president.
Mid-March Target For Stimulus Might Be Cue For Oil
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has set Mar. 14 as his target for Biden’s COVID-19 bill to be signed into law. That might also be the target for the oil rally to reach a temporal peak, and for an appreciable retreat to set in.
Of course, none of this is cast in stone, and energy prices could go either way over the next three weeks. Bank of America Merrill Lynch sees Brent up as high as $70 by the end of the first quarter. Goldman Sachs, meanwhile, thinks the global crude benchmark will reach $75 by the third quarter.
Potential crude stockpile builds over the next week or two might weigh on oil prices, especially if refineries in Texas take longer than expected to rebound from the worst snowstorm in three decades to hit the heartland of US energy.
There’s also the other big question on what the US and Iran could achieve over the next few weeks in negotiations for Tehran to once again export its oil to the world without Trump-era sanctions.
Of course, the big “if” for this will be whether the Islamic Republic will first meet Biden’s demand to stop all uranium-enrichment—i.e. nuclear-bomb making—efforts to be considered for a deal by the White House.
“This increases our conviction in a tight oil market this summer, when we expect OECD inventories to normalize,” it added, referring to stockpiles in the world’s most developed countries.
Adding To Worries: New OPEC+ Deal; What $65 Oil Could Do For US Shale
The OPEC+ output referenced by Goldman Sachs circles back to the observations made earlier this week by my colleague Geoffrey Smith on the seemingly endless oil rally.
That article notes that Russia is already pushing for a big increase in output at next week’s monthly review of the production pact of the enlarged Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, known as OPEC+, which Moscow is a leading ally of.
When the bloc meets in April to set new output levels, its leader Saudi Arabia will inevitably want to reverse a unilateral cut of 1 million barrels a day that the kingdom enacted to preserve a unity that was already cracking a month ago.
For context, Saudi Arabia and Russia have been able to keep their rivalry under control and have stuck to their pledged output cuts. In all, OPEC+ is still withholding over 6 million barrels a day of oil production capacity in reserve. As a result, world stockpiles, which hit record levels as demand plummeted last summer, are due to be back at their five-year average by the middle of the year, according to the International Energy Agency’s latest monthly report.
OPEC+ increases could spur US shale drillers to raise for the first time in a year their production, which has been on the wane since hitting a record high of 13.1 million bpd in March 2020. While shale drillers are still in cash conservation mode, the sight of both WTI and Brent trading at near $65 would definitely be an encouragement to add barrels, Smith noted.
Should oil enter a selloff phase, how low could it go technically?
Sunil Kumar Dixit of SK Dixit Charting in Kolkata, India, gives some clues, pegging WTI to as low of $51.60 and Brent at $58.30.
