Expert: Uncertainty in oil market to remain till late 2019

The oil market will be continuously changing till the end of 2019, Abhishek Kumar, head of analytics department at Interfax Global Energy, told Trend.

The expert stressed that the extension of the agreement on the reduction of oil production by OPEC + will minimize the likelihood of an oversupply in the oil market until March 2020.

“The trade war between the US and China has already reduced the prospects for global economic growth, which, in turn, will adversely affect the growth of the world oil demand in 2019 and 2020,” he said.

"The trade dispute is unlikely to be resolved in the near future, which will become a bearish factor for oil prices," Kumar added. Thus, everything will depend on factors either stabilizing oil prices or having a bearish effect on them.

Interfax Global Gas Analytics predicts that the weighted average price of Brent crude oil will be $68 per barrel in 2019.

The prices for the most popular oil grades go down slowly during the bidding on Aug. 9. Following the current week, quotes are likely to go down, the analysts say. WTI oil has lost more than five percent, and Brent oil over seven percent since Aug. 2.

Brent crude October futures decreased in price to $57.27 per barrel on the London-based ICE Futures in the morning. Azerbaijan’s Azeri Light also fell in price and was traded at $59 per barrel.

A decision was made on July 2 to extend the agreement to reduce oil production by the OPEC countries and non-OPEC countries until the end of the first quarter of 2020.

At the end of 2018, OPEC and a number of non-OPEC countries (OPEC +) decided to modernize the terms of the agreement on the reduction of oil production which is valid since the beginning of 2017. The countries agreed to reduce oil production by 1.2 million barrels per day of the level of October 2018.