油价涨势将持续多久?

西得克萨斯中质原油8月4日达到每桶83美元

沙特阿拉伯已表示，可能会进一步延长或深化减产

影响价格的主要因素仍是全球最大消费国的经济前景

据油价网2023年8月6日报道，8月4日的一周是油价狂飙的一周。标普500指数在美国公布多年来最大库存削减的消息后大涨，但随后在惠誉国际将美国信用评级从AAA下调至AA+后同样大幅下挫。

仅仅一天之后，油价再次反弹，因为沙特阿拉伯采取了几乎所有人都预料到的行动，将每天100万桶的自愿再减产协议延长至9月份。每个人都在猜测价格将何去何从，但分析师们表示，这种涨势不会持续下去。

这似乎是最近接受《华尔街日报》调查的大多数分析师的看法。根据《华尔街日报》的调查，布伦特原油价格在第三季度将达到平均每桶87美元，并在2024年第二季度之前保持在这一水平附近。

对于西得克萨斯中质原油，分析师预计第三季度和2024年上半年的价格为每桶83美元。尽管欧佩克+继续减产，亚洲经济也在反弹。

他们认为油价不会大幅上涨的原因是，全球从疫情中复苏的速度比预期要慢，有趣的是，沙特阿拉伯的自愿再减产增加了其备用产能。

至于备用产能，几年前，当石油需求在第一波封锁后开始复苏时，这是一个很大的担忧。人们担心，由于投资不足，全球石油行业没有足够的备用产能来应对潜在的需求激增。

目前，这一警告尚未得到验证，但沙特阿拉伯正致力于在中期内扩大其备用产能。然而，沙特阿拉伯在这样做的同时，也限制了产量。通过限制产量，沙特阿拉伯限制了买家可以立即获得的原油数量，这使得增加备用产能的论点有点无关紧要。

沙特阿拉伯可能会按照计划将其原油日产能总量提高到1300万桶，但如果它每天只生产900万桶，以保持油价在80美元以上，那么其备用产能的规模对日常甚至长期价格走势的重要性都很小。

然而，还有一个因素限制了油价，那就是海上钻井活动的反弹。咨询机构伍德麦肯兹7月份报告称，由于各公司加大海上勘探力度，深水钻机的利用率正在上升。据《华尔街日报》报道，高盛公司在最近的一份报告中也提到了这种反弹。

高盛银行称，“过去一年欧佩克备用产能大幅增加，国际海上项目恢复增长，以及美国石油生产成本下降，限制了油价的上行空间”。

值得注意的是，随着美国石油生产成本的下降，产量增长也在放缓，这应该会推动油价上涨。EIA最近预测，美国页岩油产量在7月份达到峰值后，8月份将出现下降。8月份页岩油平均日产量将下降至940万桶，这种下降将由目前产量最高的页岩盆地二叠纪盆地引领。

与此同时，沙特阿拉伯表示可能会进一步延长或深化减产。沙特阿拉伯似乎又回到了“不惜一切代价”的模式，将油价维持在更接近其政府支出计划的水平。在短期内，其他产油国几乎没有办法抵消减产带来的影响。

影响油价的主要因素仍是最大消费国的经济前景。直到最近，对美国经济衰退的担忧还困扰着交易商们，但最近前景变得明朗，这推动了油价上涨。

随后惠誉国际下调了美国信用评级，尽管美国财政部长珍妮特·耶伦表示这“完全没有根据”，摩根大通的杰米·戴蒙也称其“荒谬”，但评级下调震动全球市场。

事实上，戴蒙表示，美国经济表现非常好，即使出现衰退，也不会有什么大不了的。戴蒙日前在接受CNBC采访时表示：“即使我们陷入衰退，这也很好。”“风暴云部分仍然存在。”

正是这片风暴云，以及欧洲和亚洲的经济趋势，将在未来几个月继续影响油价。严重的经济衰退警告尚未成为现实，如果有的话，这一事实有助于缓和油价的上涨。但如果沙特阿拉伯决定加大减产力度，而另一个产能大国也配合自己的减产措施，那么目前限制油价的因素可能减弱到足以让油价出现更强劲的反弹。

李峻 译自 油价网

原文如下：

How Long Will the Oil Price Rally Last?

·     WTI crude reached $83 per barrel on Friday.

·     Saudi Arabia has indicated it may extend the cuts further or deepen them.

·     The main drag on prices remains the economic outlook for the biggest consumers.

It’s been a wild week for oil prices. First soaring on news of the biggest U.S. inventory draw in years, benchmarks later slumped just as sharply when Fitch downgraded the United States’ credit rating from AAA to AA+.

Barely a day later, prices rebounded again after Saudi Arabia did what pretty much everyone expected, extending its voluntary production cuts of 1 million barrels daily into September. Where prices go from here is anyone’s guess, but analysts are saying the rally won’t last.

That appears to be the opinion of the majority of analysts polled recently by the Wall Street Journal. Per that poll, Brent crude should average $87 per barrel in the current quarter and remain around this level until the second quarter of 2024.

For West Texas Intermediate, the analysts see a price of $83 per barrel this quarter and into the first half of 2024. Even with continuing cuts from OPEC+ and a rebounding the economy.

The reason they don’t see prices much higher is that the recovery from the pandemic is moving more slowly than expected and, interestingly, that Saudi Arabia’s voluntary cuts have increased its spare production capacity. 

As for spare production capacity, that was a substantial concern a couple of years ago when demand for oil began to recover after the first wave of lockdowns. The concern was that, because of underinvestment, the global oil industry had not enough spare capacity to respond to a potential surge in demand.

For now, this warning has not had to be tested, but Saudi Arabia is working on expanding its spare capacity over the medium term. While it does that, however, it is also limiting production. By limiting production, it is limiting the amount of oil immediately available to buyers, which renders the argument for greater spare capacity a little irrelevant. 

Saudi Arabia may boost its total production capacity to 13 million barrels daily, as it plans to do, but if it is only producing 9 million barrels daily to keep prices above $80, the size of its spare capacity has very little importance for day-to-day and even longer-term price developments.

There is one more factor that is acting as a cap on prices, however, and that is the rebound in offshore drilling. Wood Mackenzie reported last month that deepwater rig utilization is on the rise as companies step up exploration offshore. Goldman Sachs also noted this rebound in a recent note, cited by the WSJ.

“The significant rise in OPEC spare capacity over the past year, the return to growth in international offshore projects, and declining U.S. oil production costs limit the upside to prices,” the bank said.

It’s worth noting that along with falling oil production costs in the U.S., production growth is also slowing down, which should boost the upside to prices. The EIA recently projected that shale oil production is set to decline this month after hitting a peak in July. The August decline, to 9.4 million bpd, will be led by the Permian, the most productive shale basin right now.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia has indicated it may extend the cuts further or deepen them. Saudi Arabia appears back into “Whatever it takes” mode to keep prices at levels that are closer to its government spending plans. And there is little any other producer can do to counter the effect of those cuts in short order.

The main drag on prices remains the economic outlook for the biggest consumers. Until recently, the fear of a recession in the U.S. held sway over traders, but recently the outlook brightened, which contributed to higher prices.

Then came the Fitch downgrade and although Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said it was “entirely unwarranted” and JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon called it “ridiculous”, the downgrade rattled markets.

In fact, Dimon said that the U.S. economy is doing so well that even if a recession does emerge, it will not be that big of a deal.

“It’s pretty good, even if we go into recession,” Dimon said, as quoted by CNBC, this week. “The storm cloud part is still there.”

It is this storm cloud, along with economic trends in Europe and Asia that will continue to shape oil prices over the coming months. Grave recession warnings have yet to materialize, if ever, and that fact has served to moderate the rise of oil prices. But if Saudi Arabia decides to deepen the cuts and the other big producer plays along with its own curbs, the current factors that cap oil prices may weaken enough to allow a stronger rally.