Dubai
The global oil market looks set for a challenging time in the coming weeks as a combination of negative factors bears down on crude prices. Fortunately, policymakers have tools at their disposal to mitigate the impact and ensure prices do not drop again like they did at the height of the April chaos. The reimposition of lockdowns in Europe, and the relentless rise in COVID-19 cases in many parts of the world, sent energy analysts back to their calculators to assess what it all meant for fragile global demand. They agreed it could not be good, but there was a wide area of disagreement as to the extent of the demand destruction.
At the same time, production from Libya has come back surprisingly strongly, and could put as much as 1 million bpd back on the market by the end of the year. Iraqi output also appears to be rising, according to a survey by Reuters. Both these trends threaten to disrupt the delicate calculations of OPEC+ countries.—Arab News
