Crude Oil Price Forecast Slam Into the Top of a Triangle

WTI Crude Oil Technical Analysis

The West Texas Intermediate Crude Oil market rallied significantly during the trading session on Friday to reach the $110 level. The downtrend line, of course, comes into the picture and offers a lot of selling pressure. If we can break above the highs of the last couple of weeks, the market is likely to continue going higher, perhaps reaching the $120 level. Alternately, if we could see this market turn around and fall back to the 50 Day EMA.

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It will be interesting to see how this plays out but pay close attention to those highs that we are approaching because that will be key to telling you where we are going in the short term. Longer-term, it almost certainly looks as if oil will at least try to go higher.

Brent Crude Oil Technical Analysis

Brent markets also have slammed into the top of a triangle, showing signs of trying to break out as well. Ultimately, this is a market that I think given enough time will probably pull back into the triangle, but I believe that the 50 Day EMA should come into the picture for support, as well as the uptrend line of the triangle.

At this point, the market continues to show a lot of volatility, and I think that given enough time we will more than likely will find a “buy on the dip” type of situation. The market will continue to pay close attention to these trendlines and make a bigger move once we finally break out. At this point, it certainly looks as if the buyers have much more momentum than anything else.

Oil Price Forecast 2025 to 2050

The EIA predicts that by 2025 Brent crude oil’s nominal price will rise to $66/b. By 2030, world demand is seen driving Brent prices to $89/b. By 2040, prices are projected to be $132/b. By then, the cheap oil sources will have been exhausted, making it more expensive to extract oil. By 2050, oil prices could be $185/b.

WTI per barrel price is expected to rise to $64 per barrel by 2025, increasing to $86 by 2030, $128 by 2040, and $178 by 2050.The EIA assumes that demand for petroleum flattens out as utilities rely more on natural gas and renewable energy. It also assumes the economy grows around 1.9% annually, while energy consumption decreases by 0.4% a year.

The Russian Invasion of Ukraine

Russia is the third-largest producer of liquid fuels and petroleum, so when the country invaded Ukraine in late February 2022, it had immediate impact on Brent crude oil futures prices. As the conflict continued, the prices of crude oil settled in out on an upward trajectory, reaching nearly $130/b in early March, and staying well above $100/b into April.

US Oil Supply

The coronavirus pandemic and natural events are still affecting oil demand and supply. The U.S. experienced a drop in production following Hurricane Ida in September as the storm shut at least nine refineries.

The EIA estimates that U.S. crude oil production will average 12.01 million b/d in 2022 and 12.95 million b/d in 2023.11

Diminished OPEC Output

Oil price increases also reflect supply limitations by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and OPEC partner countries. In 2020, OPEC cut oil production due to decreased demand during the pandemic. It gradually increased oil output through 2021 and into 2022. Supply chain disruptions in late 2021 affected global trade as well.

At its most recent meeting in December 2021, OPEC stated it would continue to gradually adjust oil production upward by 0.4 million barrels per day (mb/d) in January 2022.

Natural Gas

Countries in Asia have relied on coal to generate power, but recent shortages have turned them to natural gas. Higher temperatures in parts of Asia and Europe have led to high demand for natural gas to generate power.

COVID-19 has hampered Europe’s natural gas production, and a colder-than-expected heating season in early 2021 reduced supplies further.

As a result, natural gas prices soared in 2021 and are expected to remain high in 2022, and affected countries have turned to gas-to-oil switching to reduce power generation costs.

Global Inventory Draw

As a reduction in oil production continues globally, countries are forced to draw from their stored reserves (not including the strategic petroleum reserves). This steady draw of oil is contributing to the increase in prices, because inventories are decreasing.

By: Christopher Lewis

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Is This Stock A Better Pick Over Schlumberger?

The shares of Baker Hughes (NASDAQ: BKR) currently trade 50% above pre-Covid levels observed in January 2020 while the shares of its competitor Schlumberger (NYSE: SLB) are up by just 3%. Does that make SLB stock a better pick over BKR? Both companies provide oil field services including drilling & completion and production solutions to upstream oil & gas companies in the U.S. and abroad. Due to lower benchmark price expectations in the long term, SLB and BKR incurred sizable impairment charges in 2020.

However, the recent uptick in the oil benchmark due to strong demand, supply constraints by the OPEC, and economic sanctions on Russia, have increased demand for oil rigs across the world. Given Baker Hughes’s lower financial leverage, comparable topline to Schlumberger, and a low valuation multiple, Trefis believes that the stock is a good pick to realize more gains.

We compare a slew of factors such as historical revenue growth, returns, and valuation multiple in an interactive dashboard analysis, Baker Hughes vs. Schlumberger: With Return Forecast Of 109%, Baker Hughes Is A Better Bet

1. Revenue Growth

Baker Hughes has observed a lower decline in revenues in recent years as compared to Schlumberger. Baker Hughes revenues observed an annual decline of 4% from $22.8 billion in 2018 to $20.5 billion in 2021, whereas Schlumberger reported an annual decline of 11% from $32.8 billion in 2018 to $22.9 billion in 2021. Top line contraction has largely been due to a decline in rig count figures and capital control measures implemented by upstream companies.

  • Schlumberger’s four operating segments, Digital & Integration, Reservoir Performance, Well Construction, and Production Systems contribute 12%, 28%, 36%, and 24% of total revenues, respectively. The uncertain demand environment had persuaded upstream companies to limit capital expenses in the last two years. However, the surge in benchmark prices due to the Russia-Ukraine war has rekindled demand for oil field services – taking worldwide rig count figures from 1,521 in December 2021 to 1,850 at present. Moreover, the company’s digital solutions business is likely to assist margin expansion in the coming years.
  • Baker Hughes’ four operating segments, Oilfield Services, Oilfield Equipment, Turbomachinery & Process Solutions, and Digital Solutions contribute 47%, 12%, 31%, and 10% of total revenues, respectively. The company’s international operations have been assisting the top line in recent times, which observed a 10% contraction from pre-pandemic levels and contributes 80% of total revenues.
  • After reporting relatively flat revenues for FY2021, Baker Hughes and Schlumberger are expected to observe strong growth in FY2022. (related: How Does Schlumberger Make Money?)

2.Returns (Profits)

As both companies incurred sizable impairment charges leading to 25% contraction of the balance sheet, we compare their cash generation capabilities. In 2021, Schlumberger generated $4.6 billion of operating cash from $22.9 billion in total revenues – implying an operating cash flow margin of 20%. Whereas Baker Hughes reported $20.5 billion in total revenues and $2.3 billion of operating cash flow – resulting in a margin of 11%.

  • Schlumberger’s cash generation capabilities have been stronger than Baker Hughes which has resulted in a sizable difference in the P/S ratio. In 2021, Schlumberger and Baker Hughes’ P/S multiple was 1.5 and 1.2 respectively. Historically, it has been observed that there is a difference of 0.5 units between Schlumberger and Baker Hughes.
  • However, the difference between Schlumberger’s non-cash depreciation charges and capital expenditures was higher than Baker Hughes – affecting the operating cash flow margin figures.
  • Before the pandemic, Schlumberger returned 50% of operating cash to shareholders as dividends and invested 30% in property, plant & equipment as capital expenses.
  • Whereas, Baker Hughes had been investing its operating cash in capital assets.
  • Both companies implemented cash control measures and limited capital expenses as well as dividend payouts due to the pandemic. Given Schlumberger’s higher cash generation capabilities and historical dividend trends, it is a good pick to earn consistent dividend income.

3.Risk

Per annual filings, Schlumberger and Baker Hughes reported $13 billion and $6.7 billion of long-term debt, respectively. While a shrinking asset base due to impairment charges is a drag on shareholder returns, Baker Hughes’ lower financial leverage is a boon during uncertain times.

  • Higher financial leverage coupled with continued revenue growth augments equity returns. However, interest expenses weigh on finances as revenues decline – limiting dividend payouts and capital expenses.
  • Schlumberger’s higher financial leverage compared to Baker Hughes, despite similar revenues and a comparable balance sheet size, makes SLB stock a riskier bet.
  • In 2021, Schlumberger and Baker Hughes’ total assets were $41 billion and $35 billion, respectively.

What if you’re looking for a more balanced portfolio instead? Here’s a high-quality portfolio that’s beaten the market consistently since the end of 2016.

Led by MIT engineers and Wall Street analysts, Trefis (through its dashboards platform dashboards.trefis.com) helps you understand how a company’s products.

Source: Is This Stock A Better Pick Over Schlumberger?

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Critics:

U.S. oil field services company Baker Hughes said Saturday that it was suspending new investments for its Russia operations, a day after similar moves were announced by rivals Halliburton Co. and Schlumberger.

The steps from the Houston, Texas-based businesses come as they respond to U.S. sanctions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In its statement, Baker Hughes, which also has headquarters in London, said the company is complying with applicable laws and sanctions as it fulfills current contractual obligations. It said the announcement follows an internal decision made with its board and shared with its top leadership team.

“The crisis in Ukraine is of grave concern, and we strongly support a diplomatic solution,” said Lorenzo Simonelli, chairman and CEO of Baker Hughes. Halliburton announced Friday that it suspended future business in Russia. Halliburton said it halted all shipments of specific sanctioned parts and products to Russia several weeks ago and that it will prioritize safety and reliability as it winds down its remaining operations in the country.

Schlumberger said that it had suspended investment and technology deployment to its Russia operations. “Safety and security are at the core of who we are as a company, and we urge a cessation of the conflict and a restoration of safety and security in the region,” Schlumberger CEO Olivier Le Peuch said in a statement.

Oil companies ExxonMobil, Shell, and BP, along with some major tech companies like Dell and Facebook, were among the first to announce their withdrawal or suspension of operations. Many others, including McDonald’s, Starbucks and Estee Lauder, followed. Roughly 30 companies remain.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday asked Congress to press U.S. businesses still operating in Russia to leave, saying the Russian market is “flooded with our blood.”

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Oil Prices Slip After China Cuts Import Quotas

Oil prices eased on Thursday after the world’s top importer China cut the first batch of crude import allocations for 2022, offsetting the impact of U.S. data showing fuel demand had held up despite soaring Omicron coronavirus infections.

Brent crude futures fell 27 cents, or 0.3%, to $78.96 a barrel at 1322 GMT. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures slid 36 cents, or 0.5%, to $76.20 a barrel after six straight sessions of gains. Oil prices pared earlier gains after China, the world’s top crude importer, lowered the first batch of 2022 import quotas to mostly independent refiners by 11%.

“Market sentiment weakened on worries that the Chinese government could take stricter actions against the teapots,” a Singapore-based analyst said, referring to the independent refiners.

Global oil prices have rebounded by between 50% and 60% in 2021 as fuel demand roared back to near pre-pandemic levels and deep production cuts by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies (OPEC+) for most of the year erased a supply glut. read more

U.S. Energy Information Administration data on Wednesday showed crude oil inventories fell by 3.6 million barrels in the week to Dec. 24, which was more than analysts polled by Reuters had expected. Gasoline and distillate inventories also fell, versus analysts’ forecasts for builds, indicating demand remained strong despite record COVID-19 cases in the United States.

Oil prices also drew support from steps taken by governments to limit the impact of record high COVID-19 cases on economic growth, such as easing testing rules. read more

OPEC+ will meet on Jan. 4 to decide whether to continue increasing output in February. Saudi Arabia’s King Salman said on Wednesday the OPEC+ production agreement was needed for oil market stability and that producers must comply with the pact. read more

Iraq said it would support sticking to existing OPEC+ policies to raise output by a combined 400,000 bpd in February. Shell said it had resumed exports of Forcados oil in Nigeria, easing one of three major global outages which also include Ecuador and Libya. read more

Crude futures slipped on Monday as concerns over slowing global growth outweighed the prospect of tightening supply after talks among key producers to raise output in coming months stalled.

Brent crude for September fell 0.52% to settle at $75.16 per barrel while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude for August settled at $74.10 a barrel, for a loss of 0.62%.

Both benchmarks fell around 1% last week but still hover near highs last reached in October 2018.

The spread of coronavirus variants and unequal access to vaccines threaten the global economic recovery, finance chiefs of the G20 large economies warned on Saturday.

A Reuters tally of new COVID-19 infections shows them rising in 69 countries, with the daily rate pointing upwards since late-June and now hitting 478,000.

“The market has been a bit negative as of late amid the growing sense that the latest OPEC+ impasse could be a precursor to a pump-and-grab scenario, meaning a lot more oil potentially gets put on the market,” said Stephen Brennock of oil broker PVM.

Oil prices slumped last Tuesday after the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and their allies, a group known as OPEC+, did not reach an agreement to increase output from August. This was because the United Arab Emirates rejected a proposed eight-month extension to OPEC+ output curbs.

The world’s top oil exporter Saudi Arabia met full contractual demand for crude oil from five buyers in August, but turned down at least two requests for additional volumes.

Front-month WTI crude futures posted their sixth weekly gain last week after a bullish report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration showed U.S. crude and gasoline stocks fell while gasoline demand reached its highest since 2019.

In response to higher oil prices, U.S. energy firms added oil and natural gas rigs for a second week in a row, data from Baker Hughes showed.

By : Dmitry Zhdannikov, Sonali Paul and Florence Tan

Source: Oil prices slip after China cuts import quotas | Reuters

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Investors Buy Oil on Inflation Fears, Pushing Prices Even Higher

Luc Filip doesn’t work at a big energy company or an industrial manufacturer. He isn’t a day trader or an OPEC official. But he is still helping drive the surge in oil prices.

Mr. Filip is head of investments at SYZ Private Banking in Switzerland, and his big concern is inflation taking a bite out of the $28.5 billion of clients’ investments he manages. So he has been buying oil.

Fund managers like Mr. Filip are contributing to a rally that has pushed oil prices to their highest level since the 2014 energy bust. While energy-futures markets are more typically the province of producers and commodities-focused hedge funds, an oil rally that shows no signs of slowing is now exerting a pull on traditional money managers who run portfolios of stocks and bonds.

Because commodities prices tend to rise alongside inflation, they can protect investment portfolios against its erosive effects. When combined with other commodities like copper and gold, energy is “quite a decent hedge,” said Mr. Filip, who has been buying energy futures and selling longer-dated bonds that will lose value if inflation turns out to be high for longer than expected.

To be sure, inflation fears aren’t the main driver of the West Texas benchmark’s run from $62 a barrel in August to $85 this week. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has stuck to its plan to increase production in small increments. A shortage of natural gas has caused some industrial manufacturers to switch to diesel, which is refined from oil.

Untangling these inputs is hard. But traders and analysts say that some of the recent oil gains could be explained by inflation worries, especially on days with no news about supply that might drive trading by the usual players such as commodities brokers and oil producers.

What the Inflation of the 1970s Can Teach Us Today. The U.S. inflation rate reached a 13-year high recently, triggering a debate about whether the country is entering an inflationary period similar to the 1970s.

In one sign of investors’ interest, money has been pouring into funds that buy energy futures and stocks, accelerating just as inflation fears took center stage this fall. These funds have experienced four straight weeks of inflows for the first time since the spring, with last week’s $753 million the highest weekly total in five months, according to data provider EPFR.

Data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission showed a rise in speculative buying of crude-oil futures and options in the week to Oct. 19. Bets on $100-a-barrel oil—a price last seen seven years ago—surged earlier this summer. This month, investors have put wagers on $200.

These investors, especially those that are newcomers or buying for ancillary reasons like inflation fears, are taking the risk that a sudden shock could send oil prices plummeting. That happened in the spring of 2020, when demand collapsed due to the Covid-19 pandemic just as Saudi Arabia ramped up production.

What is more, energy is a major contributor to the consumer-price index, the broadest measure of inflation. That means that investing in energy as a hedge against rising prices can be a self-reinforcing cycle: As oil prices rise, so does inflation, which sends money managers like Mr. Filip back to the energy market to reup their protection.

“People buy oil, that boosts inflation expectations, and that can feed on itself,” said Evan Brown, head of asset allocation at UBS Asset Management.

Inflation has gone from an expected and natural consequence of economies emerging from lockdowns to a major source of investor angst. Higher prices eat into yields on fixed-rate bonds and loans. Stocks of companies that can’t as easily pass on higher costs to customers tend to take a hit, too.

Some investors have bet that oil prices could rise to $200 a barrel.

U.S. consumer prices in September rose at a 5.4% annual rate, faster than in August and just below a 30-year high. Germany’s 4.5% annual rate in October was the biggest year-to-year increase since 1993.

Central bankers in the U.S. and Europe say higher prices are likely temporary and will ease as supply-chain delays are resolved and economies work through restart creaks. But investors aren’t so sure. In addition to more traditional inflation hedges, such as bonds whose yields are linked to consumer prices, they are flocking to commodities.

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Mr. Brown, who helps devise portfolios for some $1.2 trillion of client assets at UBS, is recommending commodity futures, energy stocks and currencies of oil-rich countries such as Russia and Canada. John Roe, head of multiasset funds at Legal & General Investment Management, said he is protecting his investments against runaway prices with Chilean pesos, which are linked to copper prices, and shares in gold miners.

So far the strategy appears to be working. Inflation is rising but so are the prices of energy and many metals. Paul O’Connor, head of multiasset at Janus Henderson, warned that might not last.

Today’s inflation is being driven by gummed-up supply chains that have created shortages of nearly everything, pushing the prices of raw materials higher. But he expects future inflation to be driven more by rising wages, and it is less clear if that would have the same effect on commodity prices. “Quite questionable,” he said of the strategy.

By: Anna Hirtenstein

Anna Hirtenstein is a reporter at The Wall Street Journal in London, covering financial markets. She was previously a reporter at Bloomberg in London, an investment banker at Greentech Capital Advisors in Zurich and has also worked as a field correspondent with a focus on oil in Northern Iraq and West Africa. 

Source: Investors Buy Oil on Inflation Fears, Pushing Prices Even Higher – WSJ

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Ng, Abigail (14 October 2021). “Goldman Sachs says oil prices could be higher for much longer”. CNBC. Retrieved 18 October 2021.

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