Oil Traders See Market Fundamentals Getting More Bullish

Crude oil market fundamentals are getting more bullish, despite the recent decline in oil prices which was not driven by fundamentals, several oil traders said at the FT Commodities Global Summit.

• The recent drop in oil prices wasn’t driven by supply-demand fundamentals, which are getting more bullish, commodities hedge fund manager Pierre Andurand said.
• Andurand sees oil prices rising to $140/bbl by the end of the year.
• Gunvor remains quite bullish, because there’s not a lot of oil in storage and no big production upside from US shale, Stephane Degenne, Gunvor’s co-head of trading said.
• Oil prices are expected at around $92/bbl by the end of the year, Degenne said.
• Trafigura is “more than hopeful” about China’s recover and see the market tightening up toward the end of the year, as the expectation for 400kbpd growth in US production this year may be too high, the firm’s Co-Head of Trading, Ben Luckock, said.
• Oil prices will be more prone to price spikes in the future and oil prices are forecast in the $80/bbl range in late summer, Luckock added.
• Saudi Arabia is becoming less closely aligned with the US and believes Washington makes a lot of oil-policy asks, Helima Croft, chief commodities strategist at RBC said.
• The kingdom won’t always be on the US side and is willing to face the consequences of that, Croft added.
• OPEC would intervene if oil prices dropped substantially, Croft said.