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Wall Street is beginning to sour on the outlook for crude next year, with Goldman Sachs Group and Morgan Stanley lowering price forecasts as global supplies increase, including potentially from OPEC+.
The two banks now foresee global benchmark Brent averaging less than US$80 a barrel in 2025, with Goldman’s revised forecast cut to US$77, while Morgan Stanley sees futures ranging from US$78 to US$75. Both expect that the crude market will be in surplus, with prices trending lower over the 12 months.
A decision by OPEC+ to reverse voluntary supply cuts may mean that the cartel is aiming at “strategically disciplining non-OPEC supply,” Goldman analysts including Daan Struyven said in a note, while warning that crude prices could undershoot its revised forecasts in a number of scenarios.
Oil prices have weakened in recent months — temporarily losing all their year-to-gains — as investors fretted about slowing demand growth in top importer China, rising supplies from outside OPEC+, as well as the group’s plans to relax its existing output curbs.
While the group, led by Russia and Saudi Arabia, has been willing to sacrifice market share by withholding barrels to support prices, the tentative plan to add back output may alter that stance.
“Crude oil markets remain in deficit, but are likely as tight as they will be for some time,” Morgan Stanley analysts including Martijn Rats and Charlotte Firkins said in a report. By the fourth quarter of 2024, “the balance will likely return to equilibrium, and we estimate a surplus in 2025,” they said.
Brent crude last traded at about US$81 a barrel, and has averaged about US$83 so far this year. Among Goldman’s scenarios, it said Brent could fall to US$60 if Chinese oil demand were to stay flat; US$63 if the US imposed an across-the-board tariff of 10 percent on goods imports; and US$61 if OPEC fully reversed its 2,2 million barrels a day of extra cuts through September 2025. —Bloomberg
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