Oil prices fell more than 2 percent on Friday after Goldman Sachs cut its crude forecasts, citing global oversupply and concerns over the Chinese economy, and after Saudi Arabia dismissed the idea of an oil producer summit.
Joining a list of banks cutting their price forecasts, Goldman on Friday reduced its 2015 U.S. crude oil estimate to $48.10 a barrel, down from $52. The bank lowered its 2016 forecast for U.S. crude to $45 from $57.
Goldman cut its 2015 Brent price forecast to $53.70 a barrel from $58.20, and said it saw 2016 Brent prices at $49.50, down from its earlier $62 forecast.
Commerzbank on Friday lowered its Brent forecast by $10, saying the international benchmark was likely to rise to $65 by the end of 2016. It similarly lowered its U.S. crude forecast to $52 a barrel by the end of 2015, and to $62 by the end of 2016.
The German bank said crude oversupply is falling only slightly and is likely to depress prices far into next year.
Brent for October LCOc1 was down $1.05 at $47.84 a barrel by 1145 GMT. U.S. crude CLc1, also known as West Texas Intermediate or WTI, was also down $1.05 at $44.87 a barrel.
Investors largely ignored a relatively bullish report from the International Energy Agency (IEA).
The IEA said a move by the world’s big oil exporters in OPEC, led by Saudi Arabia, to defend their market share by not reducing production appeared to be working.
“Oil’s price collapse is closing down high-cost production from Eagle Ford in Texas to Russia and the North Sea,” the IEA said in its monthly report.
The IEA, which advises the world’s biggest economies on energy policy, said some reductions in non-OPEC oil production “may result in the loss next year of half a million barrels a day – the biggest decline in 24 years”.
“The oil market is looking for something a little more concrete than the forecasts. This may come this afternoon with the weekly U.S. rig count data,” said Harry Tchilinguirian, global head of commodity strategy at BNP Paribas. [RIG/U]
Core members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries see no reason to cut production.
Saudi Arabia thinks a summit of oil-producing countries would fail to produce concrete action toward defending prices, sources familiar with the matter said.
The comments followed a meeting of Gulf Arab oil ministers in Doha, at which a Venezuelan proposal for an OPEC and non-OPEC summit was discussed.
REUTERS
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