Highlights The collapse in oil prices supercharges the geopolitical risks stemming from the global pandemic and recession. Low oil prices should discourage petro-states from waging war, but Iran may be an important exception. Russian…
Crude oil fundamentals continue to favor higher prices. We continue to expect demand to grow 1.4mm b/d this year. For 2021, we expect growth of just under 1.5mm b/d, reaching 103.65mm b/d globally. For its part, the EIA is…
Highlights Venezuela’s oil production likely fell ~ 500k b/d last week in the wake of nationwide power outages, reducing total output to ~ 500k b/d. However, neither OPEC 2.0 nor U.S. President Donald Trump drew much attention to…
The manner in which U.S. sanctions against PDVSA and the Maduro regime evolve – in particular, whether a regime change materializes – will determine whether waivers on the oil-export sanctions the U.S. re-imposed on…
Political economy – i.e., the interplay between critical nation states’ policies and markets – often trumps straightforward supply-demand analysis in oil. This is because policy decisions affect production and…
In our commodity team’s simulation of how a state collapse could affect oil prices, we make the following assumptions based on recent history. First, Venezuela collapses next month. Second, OPEC 2.0 responds with a…
Estimates of Venezuelan external debt exposure place it around a staggering US$150-$200 billion. Sovereign and PDVSA bonds due next year are estimated to be about US$9 billion. This does not even account for payments due on other…