OPEC Fails to Take Action to Ease Glut as Crude Plunges

[frigidmagi]

Bloomberg

OPEC took no action to ease a global oil-supply glut, resisting calls from Venezuela that the group needs to stem the rout in prices. Futures slumped the most in more than three years.

The group maintained its collective production ceiling of 30 million barrels a day, Ali Al-Naimi, Saudi Arabia’s oil minister, said yesterday after the 12 nations met in Vienna. Brent crude dropped as much as 8.4 percent in London, extending this year’s decline to 34 percent.

Oil tumbled into a bear market this year as the U.S. pumped the most in more than three decades and conflict in the Middle East and Ukraine failed to disrupt supply. While OPEC’s 30-million-barrel limit has been in place since 2012, the group actually produced almost 1 million barrels more last month, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

“OPEC has chosen to abdicate its role as a swing producer, leaving it to the market to decide what the oil price should be,” Harry Tchilinguirian, head of commodity markets at BNP Paribas SA in London, said yesterday by phone. “It wouldn’t be surprising if Brent starts testing $70.”

Brent, a global benchmark, is poised for the biggest annual decline since 2008 on the ICE Futures Europe exchange in London. Futures fell the most since May 2011 and traded down $5.17 to $72.58 a barrel yesterday.

Ruble Slumps

The Norwegian krone, the currency of Western Europe’s largest crude producer, dropped to a five-year low against the dollar. The Canadian dollar fell for the first time in three days and the Russian ruble tumbled. Shares of oil and gas companies were the biggest losers in global stock markets. BP Plc dropped 2.7 percent in London while Royal Dutch Shell Plc declined 3.7 percent.

“The change is that it’s no longer Saudi Arabia and OPEC that are going to be managing the supply side of the market,” Michael Wittner, head of oil market research at Societe Generale SA, said in an e-mail. “That is so fundamental, it is hard to overstate.”

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries considered a cut of 5 percent in output, according to Iraqi Oil Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi. That’s about 1.5 million barrels a day based on the current ceiling.

“If you cut 5 millions, this will raise the prices of course,” Mahdi said. “No one discussed a large cut, maybe 5 percent was the utmost that some people wanted.”

Fair Price

OPEC will convene again on June 5 in Vienna. The decision not to change the production ceiling was anticipated by 58 percent of respondents in a Bloomberg Intelligence survey this week.

“We are not sending any signals to anybody, we just try to have a fair price,” Secretary-General Abdalla El-Badri said at a press conference. The group will abide by the limit, he said. El-Badri will retain his position until the end of 2015.

Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh told reporters after the meeting that he was “not angry” about the decision, but it was “not in line with what we wanted.”

Venezuela, whose currency reserves are close to the lowest in 11 years, planned to push for a production cut, Rafael Ramirez, Venezuela’s OPEC representative, said before the meeting started. “Everybody has to make some sacrifice,” Ramirez said, estimating the global oversupply at 2 million barrels a day. Kuwait put the glut at 1.8 million barrels.

Ministers from Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Angola said they were concerned about the surplus in the market as they arrived at the group’s headquarters.

West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark, dropped 6.3 percent, extending this year’s slump to 30 percent. Futures declined $4.64 to $69.05 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

OPEC pumped 30.97 million barrels a day in October, exceeding the ceiling for a fifth consecutive month, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The group estimates the world will need 29.2 million barrels a day of its crude next year, according to a report on Nov. 12.

[General Havoc]

The desperate effort to make oil cheap enough to retard exploitation of US reserves is just going to bankrupt the OPEC countries in the long-run. But they seem committed.

[Lys]

So that's what this is about? Oh god, oh god the United States is about to become a petroleum exporter once more?

[General Havoc]

So that's what this is about? Oh god, oh god the United States is about to become a petroleum exporter once more?

It's a big part. Shale oil exploitation only makes sense if the price per barrel is above a certain level. Unfortunately, that level is well below the level that many OPEC countries need to maintain their national budgets, particularly Saudi Arabia and Russia. Their efforts to prevent the US from exploiting the shale reserves do not make sense from where I sit.

[Lys]

Russia is not a member of OPEC, though if they were they would no doubt be joining Iran and Venezuela in protesting the oil glut. As it is, they've probably lodged some manner of complaint through back channels. It seems to be the Arab members who are mainly behind this, so at least they think it makes some manner of economic sense. Whether that truly is the case is another matter entirely, though I'm not inclined to think so. Ultimately they would just be delaying the inevitable, as they can't keep pumping like madmen indefinitely. Eventually something will give and prices will come back up, meaning shale oil exploitation will continue apace.

It is, however, rather funny to me to look back to all the hay was being made about drilling in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge and offshore in the continental shelf. Now here we are hurtling toward being an oil exporter again, and no caribou had to be harmed in the process.

[General Havoc]

Russia is not a member of OPEC, though if they were they would no doubt be joining Iran and Venezuela in protesting the oil glut. As it is, they've probably lodged some manner of complaint through back channels. It seems to be the Arab members who are mainly behind this, so at least they think it makes some manner of economic sense. Whether that truly is the case is another matter entirely, though I'm not inclined to think so. Ultimately they would just be delaying the inevitable, as they can't keep pumping like madmen indefinitely. Eventually something will give and prices will come back up, meaning shale oil exploitation will continue apace.

It is, however, rather funny to me to look back to all the hay was being made about drilling in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge and offshore in the continental shelf. Now here we are hurtling toward being an oil exporter again, and no caribou had to be harmed in the process.

Dumb mistake, my apologies. That said, Russia does coordinate quite closely with OPEC for the same reason most major oil producers who sell abroad (not us) do. I have to assume they would have a thing or two to say on this subject. But then even with back-channel pressure, the OPEC countries, even the ones that do want a production cut, are not going to do so at the behest of a non-member, who would simply increase their own production to take in a larger share of the profits worldwide. It does Venezuela and Iran no good for the price of oil to go up if other countries are the ones that get to sell the stuff

[Lys]

The point here is that Venezuela, Iran, and Russia are all in the "we're producing too much oil" club. They want to OPEC as a whole to produce less oil, and they are applying whatever pressure they can to get that to be the case. Obviously none of them are going to cut back voluntarily, that's the entire reason the cartel was formed in the first place, so the major producers can act in concert. It also means that these countries are aware that low oil prices don't make economic sense for them, it's precisely why they don't want them. It probably doesn't make any economic sense for some of the Arab countries either, yet here they are merrily pumping along, so evidently they think otherwise. It does occurs to me that Da'ish does get quite a bit of income from petroleum and they don't have the kind of coffers that real countries have, which means that they'll be affected by lower prices much more swiftly and acutely. This could be aimed at them as much as anyone else.

[Cynical Cat]

Don't forget Iran, who the Saudis hate like poison.

[General Havoc]

ISIS doesn't have the social costs that real nations have either, so dropping the worldwide price of oil is not going to spontaneously bankrupt them.