What OPEC can jawbone up, OPEC can – apparently – jawbone back down.
Amid extreme record speculative longs and the goldilocks of apparent supply constraints (Venezuela and Iran) and global synchronous growth driving demand, it appears the smoke and mirrors are falling apart as the latter growth is disappearing and the former ‘tightness’ is now rebuffed as OPEC and its allies are likely to gradually boost oil output in the second half of the year to ease consumer anxiety as prices trade near $80 a barrel, said Saudi Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih.
“I think in the near future there will be time to release supply” smoothly to avoid shocking the market, Al-Falih said at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in Russia on Friday.
When OPEC, Russia and other major producers meet in June “we will do what is necessary” to reassure consumers, he said.
Oil fell sharply on the news…
As Bloomberg reports, Oil producers are debating an increase ranging from 300,000 barrels a day at the low end, backed by Gulf producers including Saudi Arabia, and a larger increase of about 800,000 barrels a day favored by Russia, one person said.
The size of the supply boost will be finalized at the next meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries in late June. Typically the group operates by consensus, meaning members that have little prospect of boosting production — Venezuela, Iran and Angola — would have to agree to the proposal.
Whether the size of the supply increase is ultimately “a million, more, or less, we’ll have to wait until June,” Al-Falih said.
Novak echoed that, saying “it’s too early now to talk about some specific figure, we need to calculate it thoroughly.”
And as oil prices tumble, so breakevens slump and 10Y yields tumble to 2.95%…
And that’s another extreme speculative position about to blow up.
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