According to the information of the recent trading, the oil prices "did not notice" the beginning of the Russian military operation in Syria: this morning the November crude oil futures have risen by 0.1% to $49.41 per barrel, WTI increased by 0.13% to $ 46.32 per barrel.
Despite the fact that Syria occupies the front pages of all the world's media today, and the information war has developed at the political level, oil shows no sharp jumps in quotations during the whole week.
The economic statistics continue to affect its dynamics. So, yesterday oil was growing due to a drop in the amount of drilling in the US of 3.5% in the week (56.6% in annual terms) and reduction of oil production in the country by 40 thousand barrels per day, which means a gradual softening of the problem of excess supply on the market.
Today, a weak positive trend reflects the expectations of the players on the statistics of growth of commercial oil stocks in the US, which is expected to be less than last week, as well as the market's approval of the readiness of Russia to discuss the issue of excess supply with OPEC.
Sberbank CIB analyst Valery Nesterov said in an interview with Vestnik Kavkaza that "there is no noticeable effect, because the main factors influencing oil prices now are global factors, namely, overproduction of oil. According to various estimates, it is about 100 million tonnes per year or even more. The source of overproduction of oil is Saudi Arabia, which has been producing about 500 million tons per year. The United States sharply increased production of shale oil. Therefore, the main confrontation is unfolding between the cost on production of shale oil in the United States and the position of Saudi Arabia, which is ramping up production until the prices fall to preserve their markets," the expert pointed out.
According to him, the competition between oil producers has deteriorated as never before. "Because of this, the supply-demand situation affects oil prices. But political factors manifest themselves only during those periods when the balance of supply and demand in the market is maintained. So the loss of even 10 million tons per year of production is noticeable, the speculators start to play on it, making the prices very volatile," Nesterov noted.
The expert expects that the current price level will remain unchanged for a long time, regardless of the political events in the world. "The prices have stabilized, in the next year or two there is likely to be a slight increase, but a return to $90-100 per barrel cannot be expected. Russia's actions in Syria are aimed at solving local and regional problems, while being part of the conflict, the scale of which is already included in the price by oil speculators," he explained.
"Syria itself is not a significant oil producer or exporter. Of course, speculators will try to play on every factor. Previously it could even be a sandstorm, an explosion of an oil pipeline, a tanker sinking. But now, when there is massive overproduction of oil and the prospect of new major exporters, for example, Iran in the next year, the market does not see such events," Valery Nesterov concluded.
