Saudi Arabia's production reduction cannot withstand the decline in oil prices, resulting in a downward trend in oil prices! Financial bears occupy the dominant quota for crude oil | oil | crude oil
At 24:00 today, a new round of domestic refined oil price adjustment window will open. When the market predicted that the current round of price adjustments would be stalled, it was unexpected that as the price adjustment cycle approached its end, international oil prices plummeted yesterday, causing the rate of change in the retail price adjustment of refined oil to break through the red line of 50 yuan/ton set by the National Development and Reform Commission on the last trading day, ultimately forming a downward trend of "pressure line".
According to the National Development and Reform Commission, based on recent changes in international market oil prices and in accordance with the current mechanism for forming refined oil prices, starting from 24:00 on June 13, 2023, domestic gasoline and diesel prices will be reduced by 55 yuan and 50 yuan per ton, respectively. Taking a family sedan with a fuel tank capacity of 50L as an example, filling up a tank of 92 octane gasoline will save about 2 yuan.
At this point, the price adjustment of refined oil this year will present a pattern of "four rises, six falls, and two stalls". After the rise and fall offset each other, gasoline and diesel have cumulatively decreased by 125 yuan/ton and 120 yuan/ton, respectively, this year. The next round of price adjustment window will open at 24:00 on June 28th.
According to the monitoring by the Price Monitoring Center of the National Development and Reform Commission, international oil prices have slightly decreased during this round of refined oil price adjustment cycle. On average, WTI oil prices in London Brent and New York have decreased by 2.34% compared to the previous price adjustment cycle. Analysts point out that the fierce competition between financial bears and crude oil bulls is currently regaining control of crude oil prices. With most analysts predicting an increase in oil prices, oil prices are mostly in a downward trend.
In early June, OPEC+announced an extension of its oil production reduction until 2024, with a daily crude oil production quota adjusted from 41.856 million barrels to 40.46 million barrels. Saudi Arabia has also stated that it will reduce its daily production from approximately 10 million barrels to 9 million barrels in July. The Saudi Energy Minister has stated that all necessary measures will be taken to ensure market stability. Affected by this, international oil prices once rebounded significantly.
Unfortunately, the upward trend in prices has not been sustained for too long. International oil prices fell significantly on the 12th, with the futures price of light crude oil for July delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange dropping $3.05 to close at $67.12 per barrel, a decrease of 4.35%; The London Brent crude oil futures for August delivery fell $2.95 to close at $71.84 per barrel, a decrease of 3.94%.
It is worth mentioning that Goldman Sachs, which has always been optimistic about oil prices, has lowered its expectations by lowering the price of Brent crude oil to $86 per barrel at the end of this year, and WTI crude oil to $81 per barrel. Goldman Sachs had previously announced that oil prices would break through the $100 mark this year. Some analysts believe that Goldman Sachs abandoning bullish price forecasts or acting as a catalyst for the decline in oil prices.
The Price Monitoring Center of the National Development and Reform Commission predicts that oil prices may still operate weakly in the short term. The continued reduction in production by OPEC+has a clear intention of bottoming out oil prices, but currently, inflation in developed economies such as the United States and Europe is showing strong stickiness and slow decline. Coupled with interest rate hikes, it has a negative impact on global economic growth, and weak demand will be the main factor affecting the weak operation of oil prices.