NEW YORK: Brent and US crude oil each fell more than $2 a barrel yesterday to a new five-year low amid a rising number of predictions that oversupply would extend well into 2015.
Opec member Kuwait said it expected prices to remain in the doldrums for about six months.
Prices continued to decline following a Morgan Stanley report that revised its oil price forecasts lower. In a report dated December 5, Morgan Stanley said oil prices could fall as low as $43 a barrel next year. The US investment bank cut its average 2015 Brent base-case outlook by $28 to $70 per barrel, and by $14 to $88 a barrel for 2016.
“Without Opec intervention, markets risk becoming unbalanced, with peak oversupply likely in the second quarter of 2015,” Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Longson said.
Brent for January was down $2.42 at $66.62 a barrel by 1513 GMT, its lowest since October 2009. US crude was down $2.27 at $63.55 a barrel, a session low, its lowest since July 2009.
“When these things go lower, they tend to go much farther than people anticipated,” said Tariq Zahir at Tyche Capital. “I definitely think we’re going to keep heading lower, everyone is trying to pick a bottom.”
At a meeting last month, top oil exporter Saudi Arabia resisted calls from poorer members of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to cut production, driving a further slide in prices, which have lost more than 40 percent since June.
Libya’s state oil company said the country was producing 800,000 barrels per day, though its El Sharara oilfield was closed due to a pipeline blockade.
It is unclear how soon the price slump will slow the US shale boom. While the number of onshore rigs drilling for crude oil remains relatively high, companies are making deeper cuts to spending for next year. Conoco said it would slash spending by 20 percent, or $3bn, the biggest reduction thus far announced by US drillers. Reuters
