New Normal for Brent Crude Price May Be $ 75-80 a Barrel

New Delhi, April 20 (IANS) The new normal for Brent crude price may be around Saudi Arabia's fiscal break-even crude price of USD 75-80 a barrel, JM Financial Institutional Securities said in a report.

IEA expects the surprise, voluntary output cut of 1.66mmbpd (from May'23 till end-CY'23) by OPEC+ to push the oil market into deficit in 2HCY23; this deficit will be aided by continued expectation of CY23 global oil demand growing by 2.0mmbpd on likely rebound in China.

"We believe the OPEC+ output cut decision was a reiteration of its willingness to support Brent crude price around USD 75-80/bbl, which is the fiscal break-even crude price needed by Saudi Arabia," the report said.

OPEC+ pricing power has got strengthened over the past 2-3 years due to: a) US oil production continuing to be lower at 12.3mmbpd vs. pre-Covid peak of 13.1mmbpd as US shale investors have become disciplined in capital investment; and b) OPEC+ having shown strong ability to cut output by 10mmbpd during early CY20 to offset the 10 per cent decline in global oil demand post-Covid.

OPEC+ still has enough headroom to cut output by another 4-5mmbpd if the need arises to offset any macro-related risk to global oil demand growth.

Hence, we believe the new normal for Brent crude price may be around Saudi Arabia's fiscal break-even crude price of USD 75-80/bbl except in the event of a global macro shock, the report said.

This is a departure from the pre-Covid normal Brent crude price of around USD 60-65/bbl, which was driven by marginal cost of US shale oil production.

Russia's oil exports rose by 0.6mmbpd MoM to 8.1mmbpd in March'23 due to rise in oil product exports: Russia's oil exports rebounded by 0.6mmbpd MoM to 8.1mmbpd in March'23 (after having declined 0.5mmbpd in Feb'23), the highest since April 2020, due to surge in oil product exports (which climbed 450kpd MoM to 3.1mmbpd). Hence, Russia's export revenue increased USD 1bn MoM to USD 12.7bn, but it is still down 43 per cent YoY. Bulk of Russia's crude is being exported to China and India, while its gasoline and diesel exports are being sold to Africa and Latin America, the report said.