据路透社2月19日报道，随着油价飙升，许多交易员预计今年晚些时候石油短缺将日益严重，但沙特阿拉伯石油部长呼吁采取谨慎的方式增产。
他表示:“我们现在的状况比一年前好多了，但是我必须再次警告大家，不要自满。不确定性非常高，我们必须非常谨慎。”
相比之下，期货市场显示供应迅速吃紧，自11月初宣布疫苗试验成功以来，近月布伦特原油价格在3个多月里上涨了逾25美元/桶，涨幅达65%。布伦特原油六个月期价差已飙升至每桶逾3.70美元，这表明交易商预期石油库存将迅速减少。
沙特石油部长和交易员之间就产量和消费量之间的预测平衡存在分歧，这是很正常的。
沙特阿拉伯和其他欧佩克的产油国，以及以俄罗斯为首的欧佩克+集团，往往对油价上涨初期的消费情况过于悲观。部分原因在于，当人们对最近的经济衰退危机记忆犹新时，他们担心油价和收入会回到较低水的平。正如沙特部长此前所说的那样，2020年的危机告诉我们要对市场保持谨慎态度。
值得注意的是，消费预测不足和产量预测过高将导致价格上涨和暴利。沙特阿拉伯前任石油部长在2018年2月曾表示：“如果我们无法避免在平衡供需市场上发生判断性的错误，那就顺其自然吧。”
价格上涨在短期内有利于政府财政，从长期来看，则将为生产过剩和另一场经济衰退创造条件。其结果是，欧佩克对增产持谨慎态度——即便是在价格上涨、库存减少、市场出现明显现货溢价的情况下。
欧佩克增产缓慢通常会导致库存低于平均水平，而价格则会过高，直到非欧佩克产油国的增产使价格见顶，然后开始下跌。
由于市场是一个复杂的自适应系统，具有一些混乱的特征，因此无法预测波峰和波谷的准确时间和幅度。但价格、产量、消费、库存和价差的涨跌模式，以及欧佩克对此的反应，遵循着一个熟悉的规律。这个循环可以分为一系列的阶段。确切的数字是任意的，相位可以重叠而不是完全不同。近期库存下降、现货价格上升、现货溢价急剧上升，都表明市场正走向峰值。
欧佩克继续限制产量的决心将减弱，它将面临通过增产来抑制价格上涨的压力。在2020年末和2021年初，欧佩克+的几个成员国要求提高产量，许多成员国的减产合规程度似乎正在下降。
随着油价飙升，欧佩克已经面临越来越多的压力，要求其开始增加产量，否则就会面临美国页岩油公司钻探和生产复苏的挑战。
王佳晶 摘译自 路透社
原文如下：
Column: OPEC+ under pressure to boost output as oil climbs towards peak
Saudi Arabia’s oil minister has called for a cautious approach to raising production, even as prices surge and many traders anticipate an increasingly severe shortage of petroleum later this year.
“We are in a much better place than we were a year ago, but I must warn, once again, against complacency. The uncertainty is very high, and we have to be extremely cautious,” the minister said in a speech on Wednesday.
In contrast, futures markets point to a rapid tightening of supply, with front-month Brent up more than $25 per barrel or 65% in just over three months since successful vaccine trials were announced in early November.
Brent’s six-month calendar spread has surged into a backwardation of more than $3.70 per barrel, putting it in the 94th percentile for all trading days since 1990, and indicating traders expect a rapid depletion in oil stocks.
Disagreements between the Saudi oil minister and traders about the forecast balance between production and consumption historically have been common at this point in the price cycle.
Saudi Arabia and other producers in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, as well as the broader group of allies led by Russia (OPEC+), tend to be over-pessimistic about consumption early in the upswing.
Part of the reason is fear of a return to low prices and revenues when memories of the recent slump are still fresh. “The scars from the events of last year should teach us caution,” as the Saudi minister said on Feb. 17.
But producers also have a financial incentive to err on the side of caution. Under-forecasting consumption and over-forecasting production leads to a rise in prices and revenue windfall.
“If we have to err on over-balancing the market a little bit, so be it. Rather than quitting too early and finding out we were dealing with less reliable information ... stay the course,” Saudi Arabia’s previous oil minister said almost exactly three years ago in February 2018, when prices and spreads were at the same level they are now.
Rising prices are beneficial for government finances in the short term, even if they create the conditions for over-production and another slump in the long term.
The result is that it is quite normal for OPEC to be wary of raising output at this stage in the cycle – even as prices rise, inventories shrink and the market moves into a pronounced backwardation.
OPEC’s slowness in raising production typically causes inventories to fall below average, and prices to overshoot on the upside, until a rise in output from non-OPEC producers causes prices to peak and then start to fall.
Every price cycle is slightly different. Some slumps are triggered by recessions, others by volume wars. And OPEC+ ministers come and go. But the basic decision-making framework and incentives stay largely the same.
The precise timing and magnitude of peaks and troughs cannot be forecast because the market is a complex adaptive system that has some chaotic features.
But the broad pattern of rising and falling prices, production, consumption, inventories and spreads, as well as OPEC’s response to them, follows a familiar sequence.
The cycle can be split into a series of phases. The exact number is somewhat arbitrary and the phases can overlap and not be fully distinct.
The recent fall in inventories, rise in spot prices, and shift towards a steep backwardation, indicate the market is moving towards a peak.
In previous cycles, at this point OPEC’s resolution to continue restricting output would weaken and it would come under pressure to curb price increases by boosting production .
The current upswing appears to be following the same pattern. In late 2020 and early 2021, several members of OPEC+ pushed for output increases and compliance appears to be fading for many members.
With prices surging, the organisation already faces increasing calls to start boosting output or risk a resurgence of drilling and production from U.S. shale firms.
