Oil prices rose for a fifth straight day on Monday with Brent heading for $80 amid supply concerns as parts of the world sees demand pick up with the easing of pandemic conditions.
Brent crude was up $1.14 or 1.5% at $79.23 a barrel by 0208 GMT, having risen a third consecutive week through Friday.
U.S. Oil added $1.11 or 1.5% to $75.09, its highest since July, after rising for a fifth straight week last week.
Goldman Sachs raised its forecast for year-end Brent crude oil prices to $90 per barrel from $80, as a faster fuel demand recovery from Delta variant and Hurricane Ida’s hit to production led to tight global supplies.
Brent futures hit a near three-year high last week as global output disruptions have forced energy companies to pull large amounts of crude out of inventories.
“While we have long held a bullish oil view, the current global supply-demand deficit is larger than we expected, with the recovery in global demand from the Delta impact even faster than our above-consensus forecast and with global supply remaining short of our below consensus forecasts,” Goldman in a note
Earlier this month, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies, a group known as OPEC+, agreed to stick to its decision made in July to phase out record output cuts.
Hurricane Ida’s hit to supply has more than offset OPEC+’s production ramp-up since July with non-OPEC+ and non-shale production continuing to disappoint, Goldman said.
Hurricane Ida and Nicholas, which swept through the U.S. Gulf of Mexico earlier this month, damaged platforms, pipelines and processing hubs, shutting most offshore production for weeks. read more
On the demand side, Goldman said risks were “squarely” skewed to the upside in the winter, as a global gas shortage will increase oil-fired power generation.
Goldman, however, flagged a potential new virus variant, which could weigh on demand and an aggressively faster ramp-up in OPEC+ production that may soften its projected deficit, as key risks to its bullish outlook.
For 2022, the bank lowered its average forecasts for the second and fourth quarter to $80/bbl from $85/bbl as it factored in the possibility of an Iran-U.S. nuclear deal by next April.
Rising gas prices as also helping drive oil higher as the liquid becomes relatively cheaper for power generation, ANZ analysts said in the note.
Caught short by the demand rebound, members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and their allies, known as OPEC+, have had difficulty raising output as under-investment or maintenance delays persist from the pandemic.
China’s first public sale of state oil reserves has barely acted to cap gains as PetroChina and Hengli Petrochemical bought four cargoes totalling about 4.43 million barrels.
India’s oil imports hit a three-month peak in August, rebounding from nearly one-year lows reached in July, as refiners in the second-biggest importer of crude stocked up in anticipation of higher demand.
