Weekly Review

With the advent of the Trump administration and Republican control of the Congress, the world oil situation seems likely to become more uncertain than usual. In the last two weeks, the new President has signed numerous executive orders that will have an impact on the oil industry in coming years. The President and the Republicans in Congress will soon have done everything they can to launch a new oil boom by reducing environmental and financial regulations; permitting whatever pipelines the oil industry wants to build; and opening federally-controlled property and offshore areas for drilling. Republicans have long held that America would be energy independent were it not for the restrictions unfairly placed on the industry. While these measures may eventually spur more drilling, for the time being, however, oil prices and the demand for oil will still determine investment decisions. Some are questioning whether the Keystone XL will be built in the near future given the relatively low oil prices and the shale oil boom that have become important since the pipeline was planned.

Prices moved slightly higher last week as the markets continued to watch the decline in oil production by most OPEC members and a few other exporters interested in seeing oil move higher. The evidence continues to accumulate that progress is being made in achieving OPEC’s 1.8 million b/d cut. In addition to a number of OPEC luminaries who assured the world that the cuts are happening and that the markets would be balanced shortly, tanker-tracker Petro-Logistics said that its information indicates that OPEC will reduce its supply by 900,000 b/d in January. This number does not include 11 non-OPEC members that are also supposed to be cutting production 600,000 b/d. The CEO of Petro-Logistics which has been monitoring tanker movements for 30 years said this suggests “a high level of compliance thus far.”

Three themes dominated the oil news last week. 1. Will OPEC with Russian help succeed in cutting production enough to rebalance the oil markets and move prices significantly higher? 2. Will the US oil industry rebound so vigorously as to offset the OPEC cuts? 3. And finally what will the be the impact of all the new energy policies the Trump administration is beginning to implement?

For the last month oil prices have been stuck in a trading range in New York of between $52 and $54 a barrel. In London, oil has been trading two or three dollars higher. After a 30 percent jump in the last six weeks of 2016 in response to the OPEC production freeze, prices have stabilized as the markets wait to see the degree of compliance with the pledged production cuts. It may take several months to establish a clear trend as so many nations are involved in the cut. While a few countries, particularly the US, publish oil production and inventory statistics weekly, others do a poor job of collecting statistics. A few release incorrect production numbers they know to be untrue for a variety of political reasons.

Most of the discussion last week focused on the year just past and what 2017 will bring. Oil prices barely moved during the holiday week closing out the year at $53.72 in New York and $56.82. During 2016, however, US futures closed up about 45 percent for the year and London about 52 percent. It was quite the year for the oil industry with prices ranging from $30 to $55 a barrel; the election of fossil-fuel-friendly Donald Trump to the US presidency; and the OPEC/Russia production cut agreement deemed responsible for the record price rebound during the year.

For the last two weeks, oil prices have hovered around $53 a barrel in New York, and a couple of dollars higher in London. Optimism that an agreement among the major oil producers will actually lead to a 1.8 million b/d production cut during 2017 is being balanced off by a stronger dollar, the revival of Libyan and Nigerian oil production, and a steady increase in the US shale-oil rig count.

On Saturday, OPEC and non-OPEC oil exporters agreed to an additional 562,000 b/d non-OPEC production cut in addition to the 1.2 million b/d cut that OPEC agreed on last week. At the meeting, Mexico pledged to cut 100,000 b/d, Azerbaijan 35,000 b/d, Oman 40,000 b/d, and Kazakhstan 20,000 b/d after strong diplomatic pressure was applied. Some analysts expressed doubt as to whether the cuts pledged by Mexico and Azerbaijan are valid reductions as their production was on course to decline by that much anyway next year due to natural depletion. The Kazakh cut, however, was seen as important as the country was due to increase production in 2017 by 160,000 b/d as its giant new oil field came in production.

The agreement between OPEC and Russia came as a surprise for most. Until the Vienna meeting started, there was much pessimism that a deal would be reached and all indications had been that negotiations were deadlocked over the issue of who would cut by how much. The breakthrough seems to have come when Moscow changed its position from “freeze but no production cut” to agreeing to reduce output by 300,000 b/d from the 11.2 million b/d it reached in November. This change, plus the agreement by Baghdad to cut oil production by 210,000 b/d, was enough to convince the Saudis to cut by 486,000 b/d and the other Gulf Arab states would join in for at total Gulf Arab cut of 786,000 b/d. Libya, Nigeria, and Indonesia were left out of the agreement and Tehran was allowed to increase production by 90,000 b/d to 3.8 million – somewhat short of their 4 million b/d goal. Given the bad relations between Riyadh and Tehran, allowing the Iranians to continue increasing production was the toughest part of the deal for the Saudis to swallow.

Oil prices were steady in the first part of the week as the markets waited for news about the OPEC meeting this week. When it was announced on Friday that the Saudis would not attend a preliminary meeting with the Russians and other non-OPEC members, prices dropped about $2 a barrel to close circa $46 in New York and $47 in London. Although analysts and market traders remain skeptical that any significant agreement will be reached, the week began with a spate of reports from “insiders” that “progress” was being made.

Oil prices climbed on Monday but then held steady for the rest of the week as talk of an OPEC agreement balanced against a stronger dollar and increasing global oil surpluses. At week’s end, New York futures settled at $45.69, about $2 above the recent lows touched the week before last, but $7 below the tops of the speculative bubbles set in June and early October.

Last week oil prices suffered their fourth losing week in a row as OPEC continued to argue over a possible production freeze/cut and oil production continued to grow adding to the surplus. At week’s end, futures prices were down to $43.41 in New York and $44.75 in London. The surprising US election results roiled for a few hours on after the results became known, but prices settled on Wednesday with a small gain and were down on Thursday and Friday on new reports of oil production increases and stockpile builds.

Oil prices continued to slide last week with New York futures down by nearly $8 a barrel from the recent highs set in mid-October. The week closed out with NY at $44.07 and London at $45.58. The hype over an OPEC production freeze which has been driving prices up since last spring is no longer moving prices higher. OPEC and Russia have to come up with a significant production cut in the next three weeks or be faced with lower prices until supply and demand come back into balance from economic forces. The final OPEC meeting to approve a cut is only three weeks away (November 30th) and so far no progress has been made at preliminary meetings that were intended to work out details.