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On Friday, global oil prices pulled back from their recent record highs. The pullback came due to concerns among bulls caused by the OPEC and the International Energy Agency reports.
Thus, Brent futures for delivery in April is $60.79 per barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. The price fell by 0.57% compared to the previous trading session. On Thursday, futures contracts dropped by 0.5% - to $61.14 per barrel, showing its sharpest decline since January 22 after nine consecutive sessions of growth.
WTI futures for delivery in March fell 0.62% to $ 57.89 per barrel during trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. On February 11, WTI futures closed 0.8% lower at $58.24 per barrel, marking its biggest fall in two weeks after eight consecutive days of growth.
On Wednesday, both benchmarks closed at their highest levels since January 2020 after a nearly record-setting run of consecutive daily gains unseen since January 2019.
The pace of economic recovery quickened amid the rollout of mass vaccination against COVID-19. However, oil market euphoria, that started at the beginning of the month, eased amid forecasts made by OPEC and the International Energy Agency.
Thus, OPEC cut its global demand forecast for 2021 by 0.1 million barrels per day to 5.8 million. At the same time, the International Energy Agency expects global demand to rise only by 5.4 million barrels per day. Next time, the price may rise only if OPEC decides not to increase oil production in April.
Experts believe that demand remains the main cause for concerns in the oil market today, since the recent bullish trend was heavily dependent on the sustained economic recovery throughout this year.
According to the cartel's report released on Thursday, OPEC revised its estimate of global oil demand in 2019 upward to 99.98 million b/d from 99.76 million b/d. At the same time, preliminary forecasts showed that demand averaged to 90.26 million b/d in 2020.
Thus, the growth rate changed from 9.75 million b/d to 9.72 million b/d last year, while global consumption dropped by 30,000 b/d from the previous estimates.
OPEC expects oil consumption to increase by 5.8 million b/d this year, which is 100,000 less compared to the previous forecast of up to 96.05 million b/d.
Meanwhile, the International Energy Agency has reduced its 2021 global demand forecast by 100,000 b/d to 5.4 million b/d. According to the IEA, global demand will reach 96.4 million b/d this year, noting this would be around 60% of the volume lost to the pandemic in 2020.
Commodity market experts say that the price of oil has soared since the beginning of 2021 amid the mass rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine. In addition, oil prices have recently been supported by stimulus package hopes.
Analysts believe that, given numerous restrictions, the situation in the US oil market remains relatively stable. At the same time, the factors contributing to price growth have already been included in the current prices. Therefore, even in case of a slight increase in risk appetite among investors, crude oil will again be brought under pressure.
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