Oil’s biggest slump in four years will lose momentum because the plunge in Chinese equities and Greece’s economic crisis won’t dent global demand, according to Morgan Stanley, UBS Group AG and Societe Generale SA.
Crude is set for a “modest recovery” after declining 13 percent in the five sessions through Wednesday, Morgan Stanley estimates, while demand will push prices up by year-end, according to hedge fund manager Andrew J. Hall. Any nuclear deal with Iran won’t quickly revive the OPEC member’s crude exports, so wouldn’t immediately weigh on prices, Societe Generale said.
Crude erased this year’s gains amid a stock-market rout in China, the world’s second-largest oil consumer. European leaders talked openly about a Greek exit from the euro before a weekend summit, a break from years dismissing the possibility. Nuclear talks between world powers and Iran, the fourth-largest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, missed another deadline.
“I wouldn’t be surprised to see Brent dipping temporarily below $55 a barrel,” Giovanni Staunovo, an analyst at UBS, said by e-mail from Zurich. “To see a stronger downward move we need to see other factors,” such as an impact on economic growth and fuel consumption.
Global Turmoil
West Texas Intermediate added 72 cents to $52.37 a barrel in electronic trading on New York Mercantile Exchange at 12:14 p.m. Singapore time on Thursday. The U.S. benchmark grade dropped 13 percent in the previous five trading sessions, the steepest decline since August 2011. Brent crude, the European marker, rose 72 cents to $57.77 on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange.
The combination of Greece, Iran, China and an unexpected expansion of U.S. crude stockpiles in the final week of June combined to bring down prices, said Mike Wittner, head of oil market research at Societe Generale.
“That’s your Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse right there, but we don’t think it’s an Apocalypse Now,” Wittner said by phone from New York on Tuesday. “Are the fundamentals $10 weaker than they were two weeks ago? I don’t think so.”
Excess Supplies
Others say a persistent surplus in global oil supplies is a more important cause of the price slide, and see scope for further declines.
Surging OPEC output and resilient drilling activity in the U.S. will push WTI to $45 a barrel by October, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. The U.S. benchmark could fall below $50 a barrel this week as economic concerns compound the effect of the surplus, according to BNP Paribas SA.
“We may not have seen the bottom for the oil price,” Eugen Weinberg, head of commodities research at Commerzbank AG, said in an interview in London, predicting that WTI may touch $45 a barrel and remain below $50 for an extended period.
The global market will remain amply supplied into 2016, Total SA Chief Executive Officer Patrick Pouyanne said at a parliamentary commission in Paris Wednesday.
Despite the selloff prompted by the Chinese stock slump and the risk of Greek default, demand strength in the U.S. and Asia still points to a rally by the end of this year and into 2016, Hall wrote in a letter to investors in his Astenbeck Capital Management hedge fund dated July 1.
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