The Corner | For the second time this month, oil prices dropped below 60 $ per barrel. Growth concerns and a bearish market mood drove the latest sell-off, but fundamentals are now adding to the price pressure. US oil inventories swelled unexpectedly and led to a drop in oil prices.
Bankinter | Recomendation Buy and Objective Price 17,4€/share. The rise in oil prices and growth opportunities will drive the share price. Repsol will be driven by exogenous (the sharp increase in oil prices benefits it directly – Brent YTD +39%) indigenous factors.
Morgan Stanley | With oil up 30% YTD, fairly decent quarterly figures, dividends easily covered, with potential to grow and clearly above a market without upside, and with a process of positive profit revisions, we insist in dedicating half an hour to two ideas which are now being oversold and which have lost all they gained in Q1 and which their high dividend is clearly attractive in the market and which we believe could have returns of around 10% in the relatively short term.
Brent oil prices are up more than 30% this year and have reached levels last seen in 2014. BoAML’s team on Commodities have revised up their forecasts; they now expect Brent to peak at $95/bbl by the end of 2Q 2019. They also consider the impact on global growth of an even larger and more sustained oil spike. Specifically discuss the factors that could drive oil prices to $100/bbl, and hash out the winners and losers.
A key issue that President Trump’s speech at the UN General Assembly helped highlight was the rising tensions in the Gulf. As one measure of this, analysts at BNY Mellon note that “while it’s tempting to dismiss this as saber-rattling by both sides, the debate over Iran’s ability to close the Strait of Hormuz has been going on since the early 1980s.”
The oil price has risen 70% in the last 12 months, from 45$/ barrel for Brent in June 2017 to around 80$ in May 2018. Thus, after three years of low prices, crude has returned to levels not seen since the end of 2014. What are the forces behind this increase in oil price? Could it damage the world economy?
For any investor who believes that $70/barrel is more or less the right price, then the European oil firms are currently fairly priced. Alphavalue recently upped their earnings forecasts to include $70/barrel as a new normality. This leaves the sector with an upside potential of +6% on a 6-month horizon.
Morgan Stanley | The increase on the demand side, with inventories at 5-year minimums and the new martime transport regulation, leads us to raise our forecasts for oil prices to $90 in Q1 2020.
Donald Trump has announced the US’ withdrawal from the agreement with Iran and will reimpose economic sanctions on that country. Bankinter analysts believe OPEC and Russia hold the possible solution to the crude supply problem, substituting the production which could be withdrawn from Iran.
Near-dated crude oil prices have rallied on robust demand and falling inventories, but long-dated prices have not moved. BoAML’s analysts see close to 1.5 mn b/d of output oil facing some risk of disruption, primarily across Venezuela, Iran, and Libya.