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Goldman Sachs Group Inc. rejoined the $100-a-barrel oil club, raising its forecast for crude back to triple digits as worldwide demand hits unprecedented levels and OPEC+ supply curbs continue to tighten the market.
With prices advancing by more than 30% since mid-June to breach $95 a barrel on Tuesday, the Wall Street bank nudged up its 12-month forecast for global benchmark Brent to $100 a barrel from $93. However, most of the rally in the vital commodity “is behind us,” the bank said in a note.
Oil has rallied strongly in recent months, hitting a 10-month high, thanks to the significant supply curbs from OPEC+ linchpins Saudi Arabia and Russia. Brighter outlooks in the two biggest economies, the US and China, have also supported the advance, with stockpiles declining at a rapid clip. At present, most major economies remained on track for a soft landing, Goldman Sachs said.
“We believe that OPEC will be able to sustain Brent in an $80-to-$105 range in 2024 by leveraging robust Asia-centric global demand growth,” analysts Daan Struyven, Callum Bruce and Yulia Zhestkova Grigsby said in the report dated Sept. 20. At the same time, “OPEC is unlikely to push prices to extreme levels, which would destroy its long-term residual demand,” they said.
The market will have a deficit estimated at 2 million barrels a day this quarter, followed by a shortfall of 1.1 million barrels a day in the final three months of 2023, Goldman said. Global consumption was at a record, it said.
Oil’s rally has rekindled talk of the possibility of $100-a-barrel pricing. This week, Chevron Corp.’s Mike Wirth said it was on the cards, citing tighter supplies and dwindling inventories. Amrita Sen, head of research at Energy Aspects Ltd., echoed that view, predicting prices could top $100 “for a bit.”
Even one of the market’s stauncher bears, Citigroup Inc.’s Ed Morse, said that geopolitics plus technical trading “could push oil over $100 for a short while.” However, a well-supplied market — from producers outside OPEC — should mean that “$90 prices look unsustainable,” he added.
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