汇丰银行-全球-石油与天然气行业-石油市场展望：价格削减——看起来具有挑战性-9-24页.pdf

Since OPEC enacted its supply cuts in November 2018 in response to sharply weaker crude

prices, it has removed 2.7mbd of supply from the market through a combination of voluntary

cuts (mainly from Saudi Arabia and the UAE) and involuntary losses (Iran, Venezuela). The

supply cuts helped to support a strong rebound in prices in 1Q19 but after reaching a peak of

~USD75/b in April, Brent has slumped to around USD60/b again. The scale of the OPEC cuts

wasn’t enough to prevent OECD stocks rising steadily through 2Q under the combined effect of

strong US supply growth and a rapidly deteriorating demand backdrop. Indeed, it looks like

prices could have been much worse if OPEC supply curbs hadn’t been so aggressive.

current output – put another way, OPEC will need to continue its restraint beyond the current

March-2020 expiry of the agreement if the market is not to return to significant oversupply. So

once again, the main swing factor for 2020 is likely to be OPEC strategy:

We have updated our supply/demand model, with the main changes as follows:

an average stock draw of 0.4mbd across 2019 on our estimates.

non-OPEC volumes rising 2.0mbd y/y – although we see US supply growth slowing to 1.4mbd, we

expect 0.6mbd of other non-OPEC supply growth. With demand forecast to rise by 1.1mbd this

translates into a call on OPEC crude (the amount needed to balance the market) of 29.8mbd, nearly

1mbd lower y-o-y (vs 30.7mbd) and broadly in line with OPEC’s current output. This suggests OPEC

will need to extend its cuts through 2020 if the market is not to return to significant oversupply,

although we see scope for OPEC to regain market share in the longer term.