Bank: Olieprisen falder tilbage igen

Commerzbank skriver

Oil prices are moving in a zigzag fashion: After recovering massively, by just under 20% within just four trading days, they lost up to 9% as of mid-week. Volatility is running as high as last seen in the midst of the financial crisis in early 2009 (chart 18). Back then, prices increased from USD 36 to USD 50 within seven trading days, only to quickly drop back to USD 40. This time, too, we believe it is still too early for a sustainable trend reversal. In the first half of the year, oversupply is likely to remain in place, thus further pushing up US inventories which have already reached record levels. This is likely to be supported by the latest forecasts from the three energy agencies. Here, the International Energy Agency’s medium-term outlook for supply and demand in the next five years should be of particular interest. Last summer, the IEA had been looking for non-OPEC supply to grow by just over 6 million barrels per day from 2013 to 2019, with more than half expected to be of North American origin. By now, the IEA is likely to have turned much more sceptical. However, it is unlikely to lower its forecasts as much as expected by some market players following the slump in the number of active US oil rigs. This should weigh on oil prices. Only once the rise in US oil production actually starts stalling – something we expect to happen in early summer – are oil prices likely to recover on a sustainable basis. The fact that the gold price dropped to a 4½-year low in November 2014 apparently pointed to weak demand in the last three months of 2014. Quarterly data from the World Gold Council are likely to support this (chart 19). In the final quarter of the year, ETF investors had been gold sellers in particular. At 87 tonnes, gold sales from ETFs were as high as in the previous three quarters together. Since mid-January, ETF holdings have been on the rise again. However, with speculative investors driving the price rally at the start of the year, we see the risk of another near-term setback.