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It’s every country for itself, or so it seems after a meeting between OPEC and other major producers ended in acrimony on Friday, which has the market now worried about a price war between some of the biggest oil producers in the world.
Russia and Saudi Arabia are likely to significantly hike their respective outputs after this month’s conclusion of a global pact between the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and the other largest oil producers, including Russia, according to recent reports.
Over the weekend, Saudi Arabia, the de facto leader of OPEC by dint of the scale of its production and its ability to easily ramp up oil production, is said to be planning to boost crude-oil production to between 10 million and 11 million barrels per day, according to Reuters, citing two people familiar with talks.
Saudi Arabia is capable of producing 12 million barrels a day at full tilt.
Riyadh in the past few days reduced its so-called official selling price — the announced price set to buyers that is usually pegged to some other benchmark — for all grades of crude, according to Reuters. Russia’s oil minister has said that it also will increase output.
The moves come after plans by OPEC and allies, a group known as OPEC+, to stabilize oil prices at a series of meetings in Vienna last week ended in bitter dissent, with Russia rejecting a plan for additional output cuts and sending prices for the commodity plummeting to their lowest levels in roughly three years.
The collapse of the negotiations helped to lead West Texas Intermediate oil CLJ20, -20.83% , the U.S. benchmark, to notch its worst weekly drop since 2014 and its lowest settlement since August 2016.
May Brent crude BRNK20, -20.83%, the global crude benchmark, tumbled to its lowest settlement since 2017 and booked a weekly slide of 8.9%,
In electronic trade on Sunday oil was again being hammered with WTI down a stunning 21.4%, or $8.84 at 32.42 a barrel, while Brent was off 22% at $35.35.
Those declines if they held, would drag both oil contracts to their lowest points since 2016.
The plunge for oil comes after U.S. and international oil grades are down by at least 35% from their recent peaks and are in a bear market that has put energy-related companies on their heels.
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Edward Bell commodities analyst at Emirates NBD, in a Sunday research note wrote that OPEC is “preparing for a price war by announcing plans to actually increase output.”
Other commodity experts have offered a similar characterization of recent events:
“We believe the OPEC and Russia oil price war unequivocally started this weekend ”analysts at Goldman Sachs wrote on Sunday. The analysts are predicting that oil could tumble to a nadir of $20 a barrel.
The downturn for oil also comes amid the outbreak of COVID-19 the infectious disease that has sickened nearly 110,000 people worldwide and killed more than 3,600. The epidemic, derived from a novel strain of coronavirus, significantly dented oil prices because China is one of the biggest importers of the commodity, but worries about a global slowdown to economies and supply chains due to attempts to contain the virus also have hammered crude.
“The prognosis for the oil market is even more dire than in November 2014 when such a price war last started, as it comes to a head with the significant collapse in oil demand due to the coronavirus.” the Goldman analysts wrote.
An additional slide in oil will likely slam stocks and was already punishing U.S. equity futures. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average YMH20, -4.21% were down 962 points, or 3,7%, those for the S&P 500 ESH20, -4.74% were off 4.1% at 2,842, while Nasdaq-100 futures NQH20, -4.54% were down 3.8% at 8,181. On Friday, the Dow DJIA, -0.98%, S&P 500 SPX, -1.70% and Nasdaq Composite COMP, -1.86% all ended a roller-coaster week lower amid growing fears of the coronavirus.
A further plunge in oil is likely to only add to anxieties about a longer spell of weakness and volatility across global markets.
“The shock-and-awe Saudi strategy will propel oil markets into a period of radical uncertainty,” wrote Stephen Innes, chief market strategist at AxiCorp in a Sunday note. “Russia balking was one thing, but Saudi ramping up production is a bird of another feather,” he wrote.
