Its great to be back in New York on a part business, part pleasure adventure.
Of course, on visits like these, yours truly almost, always catches up with known crude traders and analysts to get a sense of how they are feeling about the direction of the market.
More so as market mood is a fickle thing, and we are currently staring at an oil price jump predicated on the first single-digit decline in US rig counts for over 22 weeks. But seriously is that enough to go long?
Not quite according to majority of traders yours truly has met in Manhattan; some 8 out of 10 remain net short and say the rally won't last. Almost all believe that US production would cap 10 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2018, and that we should not read much into the price uptick of the past week. Consensus here is that while the market is showing nominal signs of rebalancing, a short-term bounce of appreciable magnitude is not on the horizon.
Furthermore, OPEC faces a damned if you do and damned if you don't dilemma. Much of its cuts are coming at the expense of market share based on raw data. Whenever that has happened in recent history, the oil price has slipped too in most cases, in step with OPEC's lower market share, as
the Oilholic noted in a recent Forbes piece authored last week from here.
The other problem is - should OPEC decide to pump more, or move to protect its market share, that would mean more barrels on the market and a subsequent bearish impact.
And on that note, and armed with some bearish feedback from the Big Apple, its time for the Olympics of the oil and gas business; yup that would be the 22nd World Petroleum Congress in Istanbul, Turkey. Goodbye from NYC folks, and more from Istanbul soon! Keep reading, keep it crude!
© Gaurav Sharma 2017. Photo: Skyline of New York, USA photographed from the city's Empire State Building © Gaurav Sharma 2017.
