Coronavirus: Oil supply feared to drop by 3%, as new cases increase

There is a growing concern that oil supply will fall by 3%, escalating last week’s losses as a result of growing cases of COVID-19 in the United States and Europe.

This has raised worries about the market conditions – the demand and supply of crude oil. The United States reported its highest number of new coronavirus infections in two days – Saturday inclusive, while in France, new cases hit a record of more than 50,000 on Sunday, underlining the severity of the outbreak.

On the supply side, Libya’s National Oil Corp on Friday ended its force majeure on exports from two key ports and said production would reach 1 million barrels per day (bpd) in four weeks, a quicker ramp-up than many analysts had predicted.

OPEC+, a grouping of producers including the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and Russia, is also set to increase output by 2 million bpd in January 2021, after cutting production by a record amount earlier this year.

What you should know

Recently, Nairametrics reported that the oil prices had continued to decline as a result of worsening COVID-19 pandemic cases which are threatening to bring more restrictions on movement and consumption and ultimately hit demand for crude products.

What they are saying

According to Avtar Sandu, Senior Manager of Commodities at Phillip Futures in Singapore, “New barrels of Libyan oil come at a time when the crude oil market had just faced the disappointment from the recently concluded OPEC+ ministerial panel, when the organization made no new policy proposals.”

Last week, Russian President, Vladimir Putin, indicated he may have to agree to extend OPEC+ oil production reductions if that could be beneficial in stabilizing the market.