OPEC Down To The Wire: Oil Prices Targets On Deal

The OPEC meeting at Vienna is seeing some bumps. Here are some targets from  Goldman Sachs, regardless of the results:

Here is their view, courtesy of eFXnews:

OPEC members will meet in Vienna on Wednesday, November 30 to discuss a potential output cut.  The latest headlines suggest that, while there is a broad agreement on the rationale for a cut, political considerations and country level quota negotiations are so far preventing a deal from being reached. As a result, it will likely take intense negotiations on Wednesday before a decision is made. Subject to the usual modelling caveats, our work suggests that, as of Monday’s close, Brent futures are reflecting a 30% chance of a deal being reached, with  Brent near-dated implied volatility pricing in a $6/bbl move on Wednesday, five times the daily implied moves for other trading days.

If an OPEC production cut to 32.5 mb/d deal is reached, we would expect prices to rally to the low $50s/bbl, with observed implementation required to push prices further. At the historical compliance to announced production cuts, this would be the equivalent of realized 1H2017 OPEC production of 33.0 mb/d and a Russia freeze, which would warrant $55/bbl oil prices in 1H2017 and backwardation by 2Q2017.

If no deal is reached, our expectation of rising inventories through 1H2017 would warrant prices averaging $45/bbl through next summer. Of course, the absence of a deal would likely exacerbate the initial sell-off given the unwind of net speculative positioning and with a large option open interest around the $40/bbl strike potentially exacerbating a move below that level. However, with the market in our view only pricing in a 30% probability of a deal being reached and the option market pricing in a $6/bbl move,  we believe that a move to below $40/bbl would be difficult to sustain.

This suggests that price risk is likely skewed to the upside heading into Wednesday.

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