The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its alliances plan to reduce output by 9.7 million b/d for May-June 2020, 7.7 million b/d for July-December 2020, and 5.8 million b/d for January-April 2022. Official production cut numbers were revealed Apr. 12.
OPEC+’s 9.7 million b/d reduction in May and June is based on October 2018 levels, except for Saudi Arabia and Russia that will use 11 million b/d as a baseline. The group will meet next on June 10. Iran, Venezuela, and Libya are not subject to production quotas.
Moreover, the US, Brazil, Canada, and Norway from G20 will likely reduce supply by around 5.0 million b/d in the coming months (OGJ Online, Apr. 11, 2020).
Daniel Yergin, vice chairman, IHS Markit, said: “What this deal does is enable the global oil industry and the national economies and other industries that depend upon it to avoid a very deep crisis. Without this deal, the global industry would have run out of storage for the flood of excess oil in a few weeks and prices would have crashed, which would have also really hit financial markets. This restrains the build-up of inventories, which will reduce the pressure on prices when normality returns – whenever that is.”
“Notwithstanding the agreement reached over this weekend, we continue to believe that the global oil markets will continue to confront daunting challenges given the implosion in demand and the exceedingly unclear normalization path once the global community emerges from acute crisis,” said oil and gas investment and research firm Simmons Energy.
“Historically, Saudi/OPEC have, almost always, succeeded, in prior rebalancing efforts even though they have required multiple iterations. The singularity of the challenges confronting OPEC today, however, is unprecedented. While Armageddon oil prices may have been taken off of the table, oil very much remains a challenged asset class given: i) the supply and demand imbalances which are likely to persist for the next several months, ii) the massive spare productive capacity overhang that is likely to prevail, iii) the incendiary history of Saudi rational guardianship, iv) the tenuous stability of this consortium, and v) the likelihood of redefined normalized demand in an AC (after corona) world,” Simmons Energy added.
Rystad Energy’s Oil Markets team commented: “Although OPEC+ decided to reduce output by some 10 million b/d, cuts of such levels are not enough to bring back healthier price levels and were only sufficient to maintain prices largely unchanged. The market has sobered up to the demand deficit and would not boost prices further. If, however, indications that G20 will join in with more cuts of up to an additional 10 million b/d prove true and take an official character, then we can expect a relative price recovery.”
“Still, due to the stock build that April will have accumulated by then, prices will not recover this year to pre-COVID-19 levels, even in a more balanced market, as it will take some time for the stocks to fall back. After weeks of volatility, the market is now reacting with more caution to speculation and waits for concrete agreements to risk hiking prices to different levels.”