Yergin: Expect Extreme Volatility In Oil Markets
Rising pipeline takeaway capacity in the Permian and global oil demand growth at its weakest in a decade are set to lead to more volatility in oil prices in the near term, a prominent energy expert said, joining a growing number of analysts who see prices further depressed by slowing economies and crude demand.
“The pipeline bottlenecks are in the process of being resolved, so a lot more oil is going to come onto the market by the end of the year. We expect the U.S. (crude oil output) to be up to 13 million barrels a day,” IHS Markit’s vice chairman Daniel Yergin told CNBC on Tuesday.
While U.S. production will continue to add more supply in an already oversupplied global market, on the demand side, expectations are getting increasingly pessimistic.
“We’re in one of the weakest periods since 2008 and we think demand growth this year is under a million barrels per day. So you have that factor at the same time as you have more oil coming to the market. So expect some volatility,” Yergin told CNBC in an interview on the sidelines of a conference in Abu Dhabi.
Despite expectations of volatility, IHS Markit’s vice chairman sees Brent Crude prices range-bound in the US$55-65 range.
Yergin is not alone in predicting substantially lower oil demand growth this year than originally anticipated.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) revised down its demand growth estimates for 2019 in its latest Oil Market Report, by 100,000 bpd to 1.1 million bpd, after seeing that between January and May demand growth was just 520,000 bpd, the lowest increase for the period since 2008.
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