International oil prices continued to fall this week. As of the early morning closing on the 21st, WTI October crude oil futures fell by 2.14% to US$62.14/barrel, a total decline of approximately 8.5% this week. Brent October crude oil futures fell 1.91% to US$65.18/barrel, down approximately 7.3% this week. WTI crude oil futures and Brent crude oil futures both suffered their largest weekly declines since November 2020 this week.
Analysts believe that the decline in international oil prices reflects, on the one hand, the weakening of market expectations for economic recovery as the Delta coronavirus epidemic continues to spread, and the strengthening of the U.S. dollar as investors avoid risky assets. characteristics; on the other hand, the Federal Reserve hinted that it will begin to reduce asset purchases in the next few months, which also suppressed oil prices.
“From a fundamental perspective, OPEC on the supply side maintains an orderly increase in production of 400,000 barrels per day per month. Judging from the monthly report data in the past few months, the actual monthly The increase in production is basically lower than the specified amount, and the execution rate remains at a high level. In terms of shale oil, according to the current growth rate of drilling technology, there is a gradual recovery trend, with approximately 400,000-500,000 barrels per day in the fourth quarter. increase, it is unlikely that there will be a significant increase in production. In addition, there is still no news about Iran’s seventh nuclear agreement negotiations, and the time node for returning to the market is constantly being delayed. At present, the overall supply side is still stable and orderly , and the pace of production increase is controllable.” Tianfeng Futures analyst Huang Wanzhe said.
In terms of demand, due to the serious spread of the new coronavirus variant in Southeast Asia, the tightening of blockade measures in Asian countries such as China and Malaysia has directly affected the demand for aviation fuel in oil products. , demand showed a weak trend and lacked obvious driving support.
“Affected by the standardized management of crude oil import market quotas this year, the third batch of crude oil non-state trade import quotas recently issued is only 4.42 million tons, which is lower than the third batch of quotas in the same period last year. A decrease of 22.42 million tons (84.7%), and the first three batches of quotas accumulated 162.25 million tons, a year-on-year decrease of 22.3 million tons (12.1%). Although there is a high probability that the fourth batch of import quotas from the Ministry of Commerce will be issued in the fourth quarter, but for imports The completion rate of the allowed amount may be at a discount from last year’s 91.4%.” Gao Mingyu, chief energy analyst of SDIC Essence Futures, told a reporter from Futures Daily that China’s import procurement demand in the international market continues to be suppressed, and the operating rate of Shandong’s local refinery has increased since The quarter’s 75% dropped to around 60%. At the same time, the export quota for the second batch of refined oil products under the “dual carbon” target is only 7.5 million tons, a decrease of 20.53 million tons (73.2%) compared with the same period last year, and the operating load of the main refinery has also been suppressed.
In addition, the impact of recent geopolitical games on oil prices is also intensifying. Due to the high short-term inflationary pressure in the United States, the White House has taken the initiative to express the hope that OPEC can further increase production to curb high oil prices.
“Although OPEC has stated that there is no need to increase additional production, this is still a signal that the United States’ tolerance for high oil prices is approaching the critical value. That is to say, if oil prices If the price continues to remain high, the United States may have more means to cool down oil prices, and the pressure on oil prices will be greater,” Huang Wanzhe said.
In Gao Mingyu’s view, the key topics that will dominate the oil market in the later period mainly focus on two aspects: first, when the weak demand in China and other Asia-Pacific markets will improve; second, the growth of Iranian crude oil The rhythm of volume release. Gao Mingyu believes that currently, the number of new confirmed cases in the country has been declining rapidly, the epidemic is generally under control, and the low point has appeared based on high-frequency travel data. In the later period, concerns on the demand side will focus more on whether the fourth batch of crude oil non-state trade import quotas can be issued in sufficient quantities. After all, Jiangsu Shenghong’s 16 million tons unit is still expected to be put into production, and new batches of quotas are expected to be available in September and October. message sent.
“Considering that the Delta virus has not brought about disruptive damage to demand, and that oil consumption in Asia-Pacific countries has gradually recovered from lows, global crude oil inventories have remained at a low level since July. In the accelerating elimination, the short-term market may be oversold, and we need to be alert to the risk of short chasing.” Gao Mingyu said.
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