The global economy would collapse if oil hit $200 a barrel, said the top energy analyst at Germany''s largest bank.
"Two-hundred dollar oil would break the back of the global economy," Deutsche Bank AG''s Chief Energy Economist Adam Sieminski said in an interview yesterday in Tokyo. "Next step after $200 would be global recession and bad news for everybody."
Sieminski''s comments come after Goldman Sachs Group Inc forecast oil may rise to between $150 and $200 within two years as supply growth, especially from producers outside the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, fails to keep pace with demand. Deutsche Bank is due to release its oil-price forecast on June 27.
Oil doubled in the past year, touching a record $139.89 a barrel on June 16. Crude oil for August delivery was at $136.84 a barrel, down 16 cents, at 7:08 pm Tokyo time in after-hours trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Russia, a non-OPEC producer and the world''s biggest oil exporter after Saudi Arabia, faces its first annual decline in production in a decade. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin pledged to reduce taxation on the industry to stimulate investment in aging fields and new regions.
Output fell 0.9 percent to 9.76 million barrels a day in the first five months of the year.
"Growth last quarter fell on a year-on-year basis, and this has to do with the policies implemented over the prior year to raise taxes on oil industries," Sieminski said. "This made it difficult for foreign capital to come in.
"If Russia could reverse some of these policies and get their own oil industry back on, this will help very much."
Crude-oil stockpiles probably fell a sixth week, by 1.1 million barrels, in the week ended June 20, according to a Bloomberg survey before a US Energy Department report.
Gasoline supplies were probably unchanged. US motor-fuel purchases fell a ninth straight week as record prices crimped demand, a MasterCard Inc report showed.
"Crude supplies are adequate at the moment," said Eugen Weinberg, an analyst at Commerzbank AG in Frankfurt. "Gasoline should be the most important number, and demand is not there right now."
The US currency's 6 percent decline this year has caused the price of dollar-priced commodities to rise, drawing investors seeking a hedge against inflation.
Oil earlier gained as much as 58 cents, to $137.58, on output losses in Nigeria, where Chevron Corp. suspended export obligations on onshore production on Tuesday.
"Nigeria just doesn't seem to be getting any better," said Anthony Nunan, Tokyo-based assistant general manager for risk management at Mitsubishi Corp. "It's chronically bad." |
