当前的石油市场存在不理性因素

原标题：当前的石油市场存在不理性因素

    中国石化新闻网讯 据彭博社12月13日报道，新冠肺炎疫苗增加了2021年石油需求迅速复苏的希望，但市场似乎已将“谨慎”一词抛在脑后。

    布伦特原油价格上周触及每桶50美元，为今年3月以来的最高水平。此前，新冠肺炎疫情给人们的正常生产生活带来了巨大冲击，经济封锁和出行限制也打击了石油消费。鉴于原油市场恢复正常还有很长的路要走，现在的“繁荣”看上去并非是理性的。

    疫苗方面有好消息，也有一些不利的影响因素。大部分人需要几个月的时间才能接种疫苗。尽管英国正在实施大规模的疫苗接种计划，但该国卫生部长马特·汉考克(Matt Hancock)周四警告称：“在未来几个月里，我们将没有足够的保护措施来放松限制。我们甚至不知道接种过疫苗的人是否还会传播这种疾病。更有可能的是，许多国家将实施更多的封锁措施。在北半球，我们仍然要熬过冬天，在这个季节，预计病毒会大量扩散。节日期间的家庭大聚会和社交聚会将会加剧传染。病例激增将不可避免地导致进一步的旅行限制和对经济复苏的进一步打击。

    病毒对经济活动的巨大影响不会在一夜之间消除。以商业航班为例，在8月份反弹停滞后，目前的航班数量仅为去年水平的60%左右。受打击最严重的是国际旅行，这几乎占到长途航空交通的全部，而长途航空交通是燃料的最大消耗。商业航班如何能恢复将取决于各国政府是否信任彼此的疫苗接种制度。如果推出缓慢，或者接受程度不高，不少航班可能会继续关闭。

    新冠肺炎疫情不是唯一需要关注的。不断提高的贸易关税，英国脱欧以及美国经济复苏步伐的不确定性都需要引起注意。即使交通和工业燃料的消费量开始回升(预计明年就会回升)，要将其转化为类似的原油需求增长，还有很长的路要走。首先需要消耗大量过剩的成品油库存。据国际能源署(International Energy Agency)的数据，截至9月底，经合组织(OECD)发达国家的能源价格较上年同期上涨9%。

    即使炼油厂的需求确实开始上升，也会有过剩的原油库存需要消化。与一年前相比，OECD的原油储备在9月底增长了11%，与2018年相比增长了14%。在美国，今年同期的原油和汽油库存均处于至少10年来的最高水平。

    在供应方面，欧佩克+在2021年1月将每日增加50万桶石油供应。这比最初增产的计划要少，但仍足以使2021年上半年的全球石油库存再次增加。

    近几周原油价格的上涨已经挤压了炼油企业的利润空间，降低了工厂将原油从储罐中提取出来加工成成品油的吸引力。提高利润率的其中一个途径是成品油价格上涨，而这是需求增长的另一个阻力，另一个途径是原油价格下跌。

    虽然新冠疫苗未来前景充满希望，但在我们走出黑暗之前还有很长的路要走，可以说目前的石油市场正在超前发展。

    王佳晶 摘译自 彭博社

    原文如下：

    Irrational Exuberance Hits the Oil Market

    Covid-19 vaccines are raising hopes of a swift recovery in oil demand next year, but markets seem to have thrown caution to the wind.

    Brent crude hit $50 a barrel last week, its highest level since March, before the Covid-19 pandemic really began to tear a hole through people’s lives and economic lockdowns hammered oil consumption. This looks like irrational exuberance given there’s such a long way to go before crude oil markets get back to normal.

    Vaccines are undoubtedly good news, but there are buts....

    It’ll take months for a significant proportion of people to get inoculated. Even with a mass vaccination program underway in the U.K., the country’s health secretary, Matt Hancock, warned on Thursday that “for the next few months we will not have sufficient protection” to ease restrictions. We don’t even know yet if people who have been inoculated can still spread the disease.

    It’s more likely that many countries will see more lockdown measures first. We still have to get through winter in the Northern Hemisphere, a period when the virus is expected to flourish. Large family and social gatherings during the holidays will fan contagion. And surges in cases will inevitably be followed by further restrictions on travel and further blows to economic recovery.

    Recovery from the virus’s huge impact on economic activity won’t happen overnight. Take for example commercial flights, which are stuck at about 60% of last year’s levels after a rebound stalled in August. Hardest hit has been international travel, which accounts for almost all of the long-haul air traffic that’s the biggest consumer of fuel. How quickly those flights come back will depend on governments trusting each other’s vaccination regimes. If rollout is slow, or take-up is poor, vital air corridors may remain closed.

    Covid isn’t the only thing to watch. Rising tariffs on trade, a potentially chaotic end to the U.K.'s membership of the European Union and the possibility a new U.S. president will be hobbled by a hostile Senate may all slow the pace of economic recovery.

    Even when consumption of transport and industrial fuels starts to pick up, which it’s expected to do next year, there’s a long way to go before that translates into a similar increase in crude oil demand. Huge surplus stockpiles of refined products need to be drawn down first. At the end of September, they were up 9% year-on-year in the developed countries of the OECD, according to the International Energy Agency.

    Even when demand from refineries does begin to rise, there are excess stockpiles of crude that also need to be drawn down. OECD crude stockpiles were up by 11% at the end of September, compared with a year earlier, and by 14% compared with 2018. In the U.S. inventories of crude and gasoline are both at their highest in at least a decade for the time of year.

    On the supply side, the OPEC+ group of oil producers will add 500,000 barrels a day to oil supply next month. That’s less than initially planned, but could still be enough to tip an expected worldwide draw in oil inventories in the first half of 2021 into another build.

    The rise in crude prices that we've seen in recent weeks is already squeezing refining margins, making it less attractive for plants to pull crude out of tanks and process it into refined products. The only ways for margins to improve are for refined product prices to rise — another headwind for demand growth — or for crude prices to fall.

    While the new vaccines are a light at the end of the tunnel, there's still a long way to go before we emerge from the darkness. Oil markets are getting ahead of themselves.