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THE Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allied producers might be cutting output. but incremental non-OPEC production and demand doubts are likely to prevent oil benchmarks from overshooting trading ranges.
For all intents and purposes. oil trading data recorded over past sessions only offers a glimpse of what has gone by and is perhaps not an absolute harbinger of what might follow. Yet. what it does is offer reasonable conclusions on crude trading patterns in sync with supply and demand permutations.
By that logic. last year saw one of the most range-bound price variations for global proxy benchmark Brent. as well as the West Texas Intermediate. the preferred North American benchmark. and that will continue in 2020. While price volatility remained a feature. Brent futures rarely escaped the $60-70 per barrel range and averaged just north of $64 for last year.
Oil prices remained fairly range-bound in 2019 despite geopolitical shocks and OPEC output cuts.
WTI mirrored that range. albeit with a top and bottom end discount of $5 per barrel. unable to escape the $55-65 bracket and averaged just below $58. While my prediction for the WTI average was higher by $2. Brent. more reflective of global permutations. stayed within the 2019 range I’d put forward on Rigzone last year.
Despite its efforts to support the price. OPEC’s crude price basket ended 2019 averaging below $65 per barrel.
