In oil market sunk by coronavirus, giant output cuts make ripple, not big waves

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Minimal oil price gains on Monday show record output cuts by giant producers will still leave them with a mountain to climb to restore market balance, industry watchers said, with the coronavirus pandemic decimating demand just as stocks swell.

The day after the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and allies led by Russia agreed to reduce output by 9.7 million barrels per day (bpd) in May and June – equal to nearly 10% of global supply – prices inched up 1% on average, remaining 50-60% down for the year so far.

That headline cut by the grouping known as OPEC+ may be more than four times deeper than the previous record set in 2008, and may provide a floor for prices according to some analysts, but the reduction still dwarfed by the near 30 million bpd drop in demand in April already anticipated by forecasters like Goldman Sachs.

What’s more, governments in countries around the globe are considering extending travel and social lockdown measures that have sapped fuel use in order to prevent the coronavirus from spreading.

“Even if these cuts provide a floor to prices they will not be able to boost prices given the scale of inventory builds we are still staring at,” Energy Aspects analyst Virendra Chauhan said, referring to storage tanks and ships around the world the are filling up fast amid the slide in demand from end-users.

“The absence of hard commitments from the United States or other G20 members is (a) shortcoming of the deal.”

(GRAPHIC: Global oil prices down 50%-60% this year – here)

G20 nations have been urged to help reduce the supply glut, with non-OPEC producers expected to contribute to output cuts by another 5 million bpd, but there was little commitment from producers following Friday talks between energy ministers from the group and Saudi Arabia.

While the OPEC+ agreement is helping to stabilise the global oil market, “the deal failed to reach the reduction levels anticipated by the market, leading to oil prices remaining stagnant”, Takashi Tsukioka, president of the Petroleum Association of Japan (PAJ), said in a statement.

“We hope OPEC+ will continue their talks to stabilise oil markets,” he said.

Meanwhile analysts said that while the core number in the deal suggests a near 10 million bpd cut, Middle East producers like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait will likely have to reduce by more than the 23% cut to which they signed up, as they had begun to ramp up output in April amid a price war before the agreement was struck.

“This 9.7 million b/d ‘headline’ deal represents a 12.4 million bpd cut from claimed April OPEC+ production (given the Saudi, UAE, Kuwait ongoing surge) but an only 7.2 million bpd cut from 1Q20 average production levels,” Goldman Sachs analysts said.

FOCUS ON RESERVES

The next major focus for markets is watching for numbers from the U.S. Department of Energy on filling its strategic petroleum reserves (SPR) with demand slumping.

A veteran Singapore oil trader, who declined to be named due to company policy, said inventory build will continue, albeit at slower pace due to the OPEC+ cut.

“Most of the SPR (held by countries around the world) are pretty full already. Probably China still has some room, but the rest, I doubt there is anything significant,” he added.

Highlighting the scarcity of available storage capacity, on Monday Australia’s Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor said the country is working on an agreement to buy oil and store it in the U.S. SPR.

China, the world’s largest oil importer, remains the outlier: Its refiners are set to raise crude oil throughput by 10% this month from March as the country where the coronavirus originated at the end of last year recovers from the outbreak faster than elsewhere.

“China is unlikely to make any firm commitment, especially as the Far East consumers are still paying a premium for Mideast supplies versus western consumers,” a Beijing-based state oil company official said on condition of anonymity, citing company policy.

“Outside the government reserve stockpiling, which is highly guarded information, commercial reserve managers at national oil firms will only look at the economics and tankage space available to decide purchases,” said the official, referring to the commercial reserve departments under state refiner Sinopec and PetroChina.

These commercial reserve centres under state majors operate independently from the SPR, the official said, as they often act as a swing supplier to state oil refineries by loaning crude to plants at a higher price and making a profit when retrieving them at a lower cost.

“China may be recovering, but China needs to export product to balance (its market), and therefore will ultimately be constrained given this is a demand, not supply-led issue,” said Energy Aspects analyst Chauhan.

Elsewhere India is diverting 19 million barrels of Middle East oil from state-run firms to SPRs to help refiners get rid of extra oil as their storage units are full, three sources said, declining to be identified citing company policy.

(GRAPHIC: Brent crude forward curve – here)