Oil Producers Betting on Price Drop With OPEC Not Curbing Output
The oil industry was listening as OPEC talked down crude prices to a more than five-year low.
Drillers, refiners and other merchants increasedbets on lower prices to the most in three years in the week ended Jan. 6, government data show. Producers idled the most rigs since 1991, with some paying to break leases on drilling equipment.
Companies are hedging more and drilling less amid concern that the biggest slump in prices since 2008 will continue. Oil dropped for a seventh week after officials from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwaitreiterated they won’t curb output to halt the decline.
“Producers are desperately hedging their production in a drastically falling market,” Phil Flynn, a senior market analyst at the Price Futures Group in Chicago, said by phone Jan. 9. “They’re trying to lock in prices because they are convinced that the market will stay down for a while.”
WTI slid $6.19, or 11 percent, to $47.93 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Jan. 6, settling below $50 for the first time since April 2009. Futures for February delivery declined $1.02 to $47.34 in electronic trading at 10:06 a.m. London time.
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