IEA raises oil price forecast

[dan_s]

Crude prices have stagnated this week amid diverging market signals. On the one hand, inventories have dropped to multi-year lows, losing some 300 million barrels from their summer peak. In this, both the Americas and Asia have witnessed unprecedented stock draws that fortify the sentiment of market tightness. On the other hand, resurgent COVID across the Atlantic Basin added to demand worries as nations started to consider potential lockdown measures. To top it off, the public rift between OPEC+ and the United States saw no development this week, meaning the market will need to wait for further signals before a clear direction is established.

IEA Hikes 2022 Crude Price Forecast. The International Energy agency upped its average 2022 Brent price forecast to 79.40 per barrel, despite keeping incremental crude demand at 3.4 million b/d, indicating that it expects the market tightness to resonate longer in the markets.

United OPEC+ Defies US Calls for Action. Arguing that markets would inevitably switch from a supply deficit this year to a surplus in 2022, leading OPEC+ producers such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Russia reiterated they would not change course and that the overall market volatility was coming from other sectors, not oil.

Pressure Mounts on Biden Administration to Release SPRs. Amidst OPEC+ resisting calls to hike production, several top US officials have indicated the government should release barrels from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve in a bid to lower fuel prices as Americans head into the holiday season. < SPR oil release is just "headline risk" with little impact in real world.

[SergioSays]

some internet chatter that Biden begged China to release from their SPR

[Fraser921]

Yes I noted that yesterday in other topics.

I think Biden is going to ban exports for the optics. If he does, the upstream companies shoud announce that they will halt all drilling

Since when does it have to make sense.

I think the uncertainty on what he will do has knocked crude down 5 %