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In one of the most bearish calls yet, the head of the world’s largest oil trader, Vitol Group BV, says that cheap crude oil prices could last another decade due to a slowing Chinese economy and the ability of U.S. shale producers to ramp up production whenever prices do rise.
“It’s hard to see a dramatic price increase,” CEO Ian Taylor said in an interview with Bloomberg Television that aired on Feb. 8, adding that “we can’t say for sure that the price has bottomed out.”
Taylor believes that oil prices will trade within a range with $50 per barrel (bbl) as the midpoint.
“We really do imagine a band. I can see that band lasting for five to 10 years. I think it’s fundamentally different,” Taylor said.
He estimates a price band of roughly $40 per bbl to $60 per bbl. “You have to believe that there is a possibility that you will not necessarily go back above $100 per barrel, you know, ever,” he warned. However, Taylor said that he predicts Brent prices to rebound to around $48 per bbl by year-end.
When it comes to the downstream, Taylor admitted that 2015 was a good year for refining margins, positing that they were “much better than probably we all thought it was,” particularly when it comes to gasoline.
For 2016, however, Taylor sees a challenging margin environment for the global refining sector relative to 2015.
“I think 2015 going into 2016, if we assume, which is probably what we all feel at the moment that demand isn’t going to be quite as strong as it was 2014 vs. 2015, in other words we think the demand numbers in 2015 look like they’re going to be something like 1.5 million barrels per day, probably not quite as strong in 2016,” Taylor said.
“My overall feeling is that margins will be a little less than they were in 2015, so we’re going to have a slightly tougher time in 2016 than we did in 2015,” he noted.
Bryan Sims can be reached at bsims@hartenergy.com.
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