Affected by the Libyan issue and Hurricane Ida in the United States, WTI crude oil futures prices once again exceeded $70 per barrel. Brent crude oil futures rose above $73.5 per barrel. In the domestic futures market, the SC crude oil futures 2111 contract closed up 3.25% at 460 yuan/barrel in day trading and 0.99% at night at 460.5 yuan/barrel.
Last night, OPEC released its monthly report. Demand for crude oil is expected to be stronger in 2021 and 2022 due to rising global fuel consumption and output disruptions elsewhere, the report said.
OPEC stated that the global economic recovery, coupled with a sharp rebound in liquidity, greatly boosted crude oil demand growth in the first half of the year. While this trend is expected to weaken towards the end of 2021, the overall trend remains positive.
In addition, due to factors such as the suppression of North American oil production due to Hurricane Ida and fire accidents on offshore platforms in Mexico, as well as the new crown epidemic, OPEC raised its oil demand forecast for 2022 by 980,000 barrels per day, to 100.08 million barrels per day; the production forecast for non-OPEC countries in 2021 is reduced by 200,000 barrels per day, and the full-year oil demand growth forecast for 2021 is basically unchanged at 5.96 million barrels per day. day, to 100.08 million barrels/day; the global oil demand forecast for the fourth quarter of 2021 was lowered by 110,000 barrels/day to 99.7 million barrels/day.
Baocheng Futures analyst Chen Dong believes that due to the impact of Hurricane Ida, there are 99 oil and gas companies in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico. Natural gas production platforms are still being evacuated, while 83.87% of crude oil production (or 1.53 million barrels per day) is shut down, limiting refinery processing demand. With oil and gas production in the U.S. Gulf region recovering slowly, the U.S. market is showing growing signs of tight supply after Hurricane Ida hit offshore oil production. At present, 80% of oil production facilities in the southern United States have not resumed production. It is reported that nearly 1.4 million barrels per day of offshore oil production capacity in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico is still shut down. Against the background of the re-strengthening of the tight supply side, short-term domestic and foreign crude oil futures prices have maintained a strong trend.
“But in the context of prominent positive factors, we also need to pay attention to potential negative impacts.” Chen Dong believes that on the one hand, the United States announced plans to sell before September 13, 2021 20 million barrels of strategic crude oil reserves, and will be delivered between October 1 and December 15 this year. The scale of this sale is the highest since 2014; on the other hand, the summer travel consumption season in the northern hemisphere is coming to an end, and onshore crude oil inventories The depuration rate is expected to slow down, refinery operating rates are also facing downward pressure, and crude oil demand potential is declining.
Gu Shuangfei, an energy and chemical analyst at Nanhua Futures, believes that the impact of the US hurricane is a short-term factor, and production is still recovering, which is difficult to have long-term benefits for oil prices, while the Libyan issue is It is difficult to judge whether this is a short-term or long-term issue. If the Libyan issue is not resolved in the short term, global crude oil supply will undoubtedly become tense again. Before the Libyan issue is clarified, the trading logic of the crude oil market is still dominated by demand-side factors.
In terms of fuel oil, both LU and FU have increased more than crude oil recently. Gu Shuangfei believes that the rise in fuel oil prices is driven by the short-term rise in crude oil prices on the one hand and the recovery of the shipping market on the other. In the shipping market, due to the impact of the epidemic, the waiting time for ships arriving at the port is too long, resulting in too few ships in transit, and the demand for fuel oil has been sluggish. This phenomenon has eased to some extent last week, especially for oil tankers and dry bulk cargoes. The number of ships in transit has increased significantly, which will help drive the recovery of fuel oil demand. At the same time, diesel cracking has strengthened recently and gasoline is still at a high level. During the refining process, refineries also tend to carry out deep processing, thus reducing the supply of marine fuel oil. Overall, there is still some room for recovery in fuel oil cracking. </p
