The past week began with reports that the participants in the OPEC + deal agreed to continue the implementation of the agreement in full.
In September the countries completed the deal by 102% - the highest level since May, according to the communique following the meeting of the OPEC + ministerial monitoring committee on Monday. Also, the countries that did not fulfill the deal earlier, in September, as part of compensation, further reduced production by 249 thousand barrels per day. The next meeting of the monitoring committee is scheduled for November 17, 2020.
The new OPEC + agreements started in May with reduction in oil production by 9.7 million barrels per day for three months. Since August, the alliance has continued to reduce production, but to a lesser extent - by 7.7 million barrels per day for the period until the end of the year, and then by 5.8 million until the end of April 2022. The baseline is October 2018 but for Russia and Saudi Arabia - the figure is 11 million barrels per day, from which, by analogy, there is a decrease by 23%, 18% and 14%, respectively.
The very next day, the focus of the oil market participants was on the situation in Libya. The Arab paper At-Tanasukh reported that the militants of Operation Volcano of Anger, controlled by the Tripolitan authorities, intend to "drive all aggressors" from southern Libya for the sake of "ensuring the security of state borders." The armed formations of the PNS are interested in oil fields, in particular, the largest of them - Al-Sharara. They intend to capture it together with the ISIS terrorists. The operation will be led by the commander of the Western Military District, Osama Juweili. Given the complexity of the situation in the country, the prospects for the fourth round of inter-Libyan talks that started at the UN headquarters look rather illusory.
In the middle of the week the data on US oil reserves came out. Commercial oil reserves in the United States over the past week decreased by 1 million barrels and amounted to 488.107 million barrels as of October 16, the Department of Energy said. At the same time, analysts interviewed by the Bloomberg agency expected a decrease in reserves by 1.38 million barrels.
On Thursday the World Bank published a report on the prospects for the development of commodity markets, which gives the best oil price forecasts for this and next year compared to the summer - $ 41 and $ 44 per barrel (in June, the WB forecasted them as $ 32 and $ 38, respectively). “Overall, oil prices are expected to average $ 44 per barrel in 2021 and about $ 41 per barrel in 2020. Demand is expected to grow at a very slow pace as the development of the tourism and travel sector continues to be constrained by health problems, ”the report says. The authors argue that next year global economic activity will return to levels that were recorded before the pandemic. In particular, the demand for gas and coal will increase significantly.
The week ended with a fall in oil prices reaching 1.5%. The main factors that led to the drop in quotations were: the spread of the coronavirus, uncertainty around the stimulation of the American economy, a sharp jump in gasoline stocks in the United States, uncertainty about OPEC + policy, as well as news about an increase in oil production in Libya. The fall in oil prices accelerated markedly after the Libyan National Oil Corporation (NOC) announced the termination of the force majeure regime in the oil ports of Ras Lanuf and Es Sidra. The company also said that within four weeks, oil production will exceed one million barrels per day. In addition, oilfield services company Baker Hughes released the data showing that the number of operating oil rigs in the US increased by 6 to 211 units in the week ending October 23.
