BLBG:WTI Crude Fluctuates as Goldman Raises Brent Forecasts on Supply
West Texas Intermediate oil swung between gains and losses near a two-week high. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. raised its price forecasts for Brent, citing supply disruptions in Libya and Iraq.
Futures fluctuated in New York after capping the longest rising streak since April last week as unrest in Egypt fanned concern that Middle East shipments may be at risk. Defense Minister Abdelfatah al-Seesi said yesterday the military won’t allow the country to be destroyed after a week of violence left hundreds dead. Global oil inventories have “tightened substantially,” according to Goldman Sachs. BP Plc (BP/) said it may start redeploying workers to platforms in the Gulf of Mexico as a storm weakened.
“We’ve still got Middle Eastern issues,” said Jonathan Barratt, the chief executive officer of Barratt’s Bulletin in Sydney who predicts investors may sell WTI contracts at about $108.60 a barrel. “The Gulf storm was the reason why the market closed on the topside, because there was a little bit of risk and nobody wanted to go short over the weekend.”
WTI for September delivery, which expires tomorrow, declined 19 cents to $107.27 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange at 3 p.m. Singapore time. The volume of all futures traded was about 3 percent above the 100-day average. The contract ended the session at $107.46 on Aug. 16, the highest close since Aug. 1. The more active October future was down 27 cents at $107.02.
Brent for October settlement slid 14 cents to $110.26 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. It was at a premium of $3.21 to WTI. The spread narrowed for the first time in a week on Aug. 16 to $3.11.
Libya Supply
Brent, the benchmark crude for more than half the world’s oil, may rise to about $115 a barrel in the “very near term,” Goldman Sachs said in a report today. It raised its three-month and six-month price projections.
“The disruptions in Libyan oil supplies have lasted far longer than we initially thought, with no near-term resolution in sight, which was further complicated by the involvement of the military,” said Jeffrey Currie, a Goldman analyst in New York. “Combined with the ongoing problems in Iraq, which we see extending into the autumn, OPEC outages since the beginning of the summer have taken 33 million barrels off the market.”
Libya’s crude production has slumped amid a labor dispute at oil fields and ports that started last month. The member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries holds Africa’s largest reserves.
Suez Canal
WTI surged 8.8 percent in July, the most since August 2012, as Egypt’s army deposed Mohamed Mursi as president. The country controls the Suez Canal and the Suez-Mediterranean Pipeline, through which a combined 4.51 million barrels a day of crude and refined products were shipped, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
The Middle East accounted for 35 percent of global oil output in the first quarter of this year, International Energy Agency data show.
Money managers reduced WTI net-long positions, or wagers on rising prices, by 2,041 futures and options combined, or 0.7 percent, to 308,786, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission said in its weekly report on Aug. 16.
WTI’s advance may stall as futures approach the 30-day upper Bollinger Band, a technical indicator at about $108.70 a barrel today, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Sell orders tend to be clustered near chart-resistance levels.
To contact the reporter on this story: Ben Sharples in Melbourne at bsharples@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Alexander Kwiatkowski at akwiatkowsk2@bloomberg.net
