How do institutions view the new energy transition plan? What other news is currently driving the increase in oil prices?
On September 25th, Caixin News (Editor: Hu Jiarong) benefited from OPEC raising its global medium to long-term oil outlook, Hong Kong stock petroleum stocks mostly strengthened on Wednesday. As of the time of publication, PetroChina (00857.HK), China Oilfield Service (02883.HK), Sinopec Corp (00386.HK) rose by 4.50%, 3.90%, 3.78% respectively.
Note: Performance of petroleum stocks.
In terms of news, on Tuesday local time, OPEC released the 2024 Global Oil Outlook Report, where the organization raised its forecast for global medium to long-term oil demand. The reason cited was that economic growth in India, Africa, and the Middle East will drive demand, and the speed at which people are transitioning from traditional fuels to electric cars and clean energy is not as fast as expected.
OPEC believes that the time for oil demand growth will be longer than other forecast institutions such as BP and the International Energy Agency (IEA), which predict that global oil demand will peak before 2030.
BP forecasts that oil demand will peak in 2025 and drop to 75 million barrels per day by 2050. ExxonMobil expects oil demand to remain above 0.1 billion barrels per day by 2050, similar to current levels.
As for global clean energy transition plans, OPEC believes that some countries and companies may resist overly ambitious clean energy goals. In addition, some global auto manufacturers have adjusted their electrification goals, reducing investment in electric vehicles. This may also mean that the demand for oil will not decrease as rapidly as previously predicted.
Brent crude oil rose to $74.67 today and as of the time of publication, it remains above $70.
Note: The trend of Brent crude oil.
Geopolitical conflicts and rate cuts by major global central banks support the rise in oil prices.
In addition, the intensification of geopolitical conflicts, such as Israel's airstrikes on Lebanon, and the rate cuts by major global economies, including the Fed's rate cuts and the People's Bank of China's reserve requirement ratio cuts, may all support the rise in international oil prices.
The Israeli Defense Forces announced around 6:00 p.m. local time on the 24th that the Israeli Air Force carried out a new round of 'large-scale' airstrikes on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, marking the fourth round of airstrikes by Israel inside Lebanon in one day.
Major global economies are initiating a cycle of rate cuts, such as last week when the Fed aggressively cut rates by 50 basis points. Previously, the European Central Bank also reduced the key deposit rate by 25 basis points. Yesterday, the People's Bank of China announced a 0.5 percentage point reduction in the reserve requirement ratio, providing approximately 1 trillion yuan in long-term liquidity to the financial markets. There may be opportune further cuts of 0.25-0.5 percentage points before the year-end.