Sunday, May 27, 2018

Russian Oil Boss Warns Donald Trump's Iran Move May Result In 'Unpredictable' Crude Prices

&l;p&g;U.S. President Donald Trump&s;s unilateral decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear accord could knock 5% of global oil production offline and drive the oil price to unpredictable highs, according to Igor Sechin, Chief Executive Officer of Russian oil giant Rosneft.

Speaking at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum on Friday, May 25, Sechin, who&a;nbsp;is reportedly&a;nbsp;close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, said the U.S.&s;s decision would cause an inevitable reduction of Iranian barrels in the global supply pool.

On a day when oil futures are sliding on expectation of higher Russian and Saudi production - amid signals that the ongoing OPEC and non-OPEC production cut agreement to the tune of 1.8 million barrels per day might be canned - Sechin opined that actually new price records might be on the horizon&a;nbsp;due&a;nbsp;to American unilateral action.

&l;img class=&q;dam-image getty size-large wp-image-962291782&q; src=&q;https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/dam/imageserve/962291782/960x0.jpg?fit=scale&q; data-height=&q;619&q; data-width=&q;960&q;&g;&l;em&g;Rosneft&a;nbsp;CEO Igor Sechin&a;nbsp;speaks at the 2018 St Petersburg International Economic Forum on May 25, 2018 (Photo: Sergei Bobylev/TASS via Getty Images)&l;/em&g;

&q;Such&a;nbsp;sanctions and ultimatums applied to the hydrocarbons market will inevitably lead to a permanent &s;sanctions premium&s; in the price. I do not rule out that we will be able to speak about a sanctions-related commodity &s;super cycle&s; after a while, and see new price records in the near future,&q; the Rosenft boss said.

Drivers and industries across Europe and the U.S. will feel the effects of &l;a href=&q;http://www.forbes.com/sites/gauravsharma/2018/05/08/trumps-withdrawal-from-iran-deal-will-create-fresh-oil-supply-kerfuffles/&q;&g;action taken by the White House&l;/a&g;, as the revoking of the Iran Nuclear deal &a;ndash; &q;a non-market factor&q; makes the global oil sector unpredictable,&a;nbsp;he added.

&q;I have to say that the U.S. has consistently pursued the policy of non-acceptance of international agreements, which would allow challenging their actions on global platforms. In fact, judicial protection and fair market arbitration are off the table.&q;

Sechin did not mention Trump directly in his address but said the U.S. move had much to do with boosting its domestic oil market confidence.

Moving away from the politics of the Iran deal withdrawal by Trump, the Rosneft boss also dismissed suggestions of oil consumption peaking in 2030, adding that he expects oil and gas to remain core of the global economy in the foreseeable future.

&q;Projections by leading analysts and companies, including an outlook on global energy development recently released by BP show that the demand for hydrocarbons will be higher by 2040 than it is today, even in most challenging scenarios.&q;&l;!--nextpage--&g;

According to Sechin, oil market participants will have to replenish up to 40 million barrels of falling volumes of resources per day by 2040, which will &q;require a stable and massive inflow of investment in the sector&q; that Russia was actively playing its part in.

The Rosneft CEO&s;s comments come on a day of heavy declines in oil futures prices with the slide starting in Asia, extending well past European trading hours and into U.S. intraday calls. Further downside pressure came, after the weekly Baker Hughes rig count indicated the U.S.&a;nbsp;tally was up 13 rigs from last week to 1,059, with oil rigs up 15 to 859, indicative of&a;nbsp;rising U.S.&a;nbsp;crude production.

At the time of writing (18:08 BST / 13:01 EST), the Brent front-month futures contract was down 3.05% or $2.40 to $76.39 per barrel, while the West Texas Intermediate was down 4.07% or $2.84 to $67.87; with both contracts well below their recently recorded three-year highs.&l;/p&g;

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