After the first rally in September, the oil price, which is hovering at a high level, is likely to be lowered again this time.
At 24:00 on September 21, the National Development and Reform Commission will open a new round of domestic refined oil price adjustment windows. According to the calculation of Zhuochuang Information, as of September 16, on the seventh working day of this round of refined oil price adjustment cycle, the change rate of domestic reference crude oil was -6.41%, and the cumulative decrease in oil price was about 270 yuan/ton, which was converted into a decrease of about 0.21-0.23 Yuan/liter. This means that domestic refined oil prices may usher in the “seventh decline” this year.
According to this adjustment rate, the owner can save about 10 yuan by filling up a 50-liter fuel tank; in terms of fuel consumption, taking a private car that runs 2,000 kilometers a month and consumes 8 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers as an example, the fuel consumption cost will be reduced by 34%. Yuan or so.
The time for a new round of oil price adjustment is getting closer and closer. The current expected drop in oil prices has exceeded the red line of 220 yuan, the standard red line of 50 yuan/ton. In order to keep oil prices from falling, it is necessary to increase oil prices by an average of more than 75 yuan/ton per day in the remaining 3 working days.
The Times Weekly reporter learned that since the beginning of this year, domestic refined oil prices have undergone 17 rounds of adjustments, with a total of “11 ups and 6 downs”. Although the “five-straight drop” was just achieved some time ago, due to the sharp rise in oil prices in the first half of this year, after the rise and fall of oil prices, the cumulative increase in gasoline this year was 1,595 yuan/ton, and diesel was 1,535 yuan/ton.
In terms of liters, No. 92 gasoline, No. 95 gasoline, and No. 0 diesel rose by 1.23 yuan, 1.33 yuan, and 1.30 yuan respectively. Compared with the beginning of the year, according to the estimated capacity of the 50L fuel tank of a general household car, filling a tank of No. 95 gasoline will cost about 61.5 yuan more than the beginning of the year.
In fact, the main basis for the adjustment of domestic refined oil products is the rate of change obtained by comparing the weighted average price of international crude oil prices for 10 working days with the weighted average price of international crude oil prices in the previous cycle. The main reason for this round of downward revision of domestic refined oil prices is that international oil prices have continued to fluctuate at a low level recently.
As of the close of the day on September 16, the futures price of light crude oil for October delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange (hereinafter referred to as “US oil”) rose 0.01% to $85.11 per barrel, down 1.9% this week. London Brent crude oil futures (hereinafter referred to as “Brent oil”) for November delivery rose 0.56% to $91.35 a barrel, down 1.6% this week. It is understood that the settlement prices of US oil and Brent oil both fell for two consecutive weeks.
Li Yan, a crude oil industry analyst at Longzhong Information, told the Times Weekly that the core factor behind the recent drop in oil prices is that in the context of the Federal Reserve raising interest rates, the market’s concerns about the outlook for the global economy continued, dragging down demand expectations for crude oil.
Li Yan said that recently, the US dollar index has risen to a high level in recent years and remains high, the possibility of demand imbalance caused by the Federal Reserve’s sharp interest rate hikes has continued to increase, and people’s concerns about economic recession have also “raised the water”. These factors have made crude oil prices. Under pressure. As a result, oil prices continue to fluctuate at low levels, and the price of Brent oil has fallen from a high of $125 per barrel in June to the current low of $91.35.
However, Die Zeit reporters noted that despite growing concerns about a recession, oil demand will continue to grow. On September 13, local time, OPEC said in its monthly report that global oil demand is expected to increase by 3.1 million barrels per day in 2022 and 2.7 million barrels per day in 2023, maintaining the forecast for strong growth in global oil demand unchanged.
In addition, on September 14, the International Energy Agency (IEA) released its monthly report, which slightly lowered its forecast for global oil demand growth this year by about 110,000 barrels per day. However, the IEA expects global oil consumption to rise by 2 million barrels per day to 99.7 million barrels per day this year, with demand continuing to rise by 2.1 million barrels per day to 101.8 million barrels per day in 2023. This suggests that despite growing recession fears, oil demand will continue to grow this year and next.
From the supply side, the tight supply situation has eased temporarily. OPEC’s monthly report showed that Saudi Arabia increased production by 236,000 barrels per day to 11.05 million barrels per day in August, exceeding 11 million barrels per day for the first time in two years and hitting the highest level since April 2020. Judging by data from the past few decades, Saudi production has rarely reached 11 million bpd.
In line with this, the IEA’s monthly report also showed that global oil production rose for the third consecutive month, increasing by 790,000 barrels per day to 101.3 million barrels per day in August. Data showed that Russian oil exports rose by 220,000 bpd in August to 7.6 million bpd, although they were still down 390,000 bpd from pre-Russian-Ukrainian levels.
The IEA expects the crude oil market to be oversupplied in the second half of this year and largely balanced in 2023.
In this context, looking forward to the fourth quarter of this year, what is the trend of crude oil prices? Li Yan analyzed that in the short term, crude oil may maintain a high volatility situation, and the medium and long-term negative risks cannot be ignored, and oil prices still have room for growth.
“In the fourth quarter, a key decision is whether the conflict between Russia and Ukraine will be alleviated. Seeing the approaching winter, the shortage of energy in Europe, coupled with soaring natural gas prices, the energy supply problem is relatively anxious, and the uncertainty of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine is relatively high. Therefore, the crude oil market price will be at a high of $90-110 per barrel,” Li Yan said.
As for domestic refined oil prices, Li Yan believes that because there is no absolute correspondence between domestic oil prices and international oil prices, there are many factors that will affect oil prices, so the uncertainty of domestic oil prices in the fourth quarter is relatively large. However, in the context of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, at present, the potential upward risk of domestic oil prices may be greater.