Demand Growth In Emerging Economies To Drive Oil Prices In 2023

Global oil prices this year are expected to be largely influenced by demand growth in the emerging economies and the impact of China’s reopening, Sushant Gupta, director at Wood Mackenzie said.

• Gupta sees Brent price levels at €84-85/bbl in Q1.
• “The fear of the large loss of supplies from Russia also has minimized now, so that it stops supporting the prices to levels we have seen last year,” Gupta added.
• “We see high growth demand from the refining sector to support the diesel market after the EU’s ban on Russian imports came into effect,” he said.
• When asked about the consequences of the EU’s import ban on Russia he said: “If you look at Russia’s crude exports after the EU’s import ban, there was an immediate reaction in December, where it went down, but we have seen the exports rebounding again to more than 3mbpd. We have seen new buyers emerging from China and India, which will have to keep on buying more and more of Russian crude and the discount of Russian crude which it is offering of $40/bbl vs Brent is facilitating that movement,” he added.