Oil prices to remain low well into 2016

Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) held a meeting on Dec. 4 and decided to keep crude production at the current level in an already oversupplied market.

The OPEC currently produces about 31.7 million barrels a day and has refused to cut its output, which made traders worry that the prolonged supply glut would continue to drag the oil market down.

Currently crude market is oversupplied by 2 million barrels daily, according to the estimation of Goldman Sachs.

"Nothing they did in that meeting suggested production cut will come in the near future," said Raymond, "I don't think that (the result) is a big surprise of the meeting, but you see that market has gone down since that meeting."

Thanks to the US shale oil revolution, American oil production has almost doubled in the past six years. US oil output has risen from 4.6 million barrels a day in 2008 to around 9.2 million barrels a day currently, according to the data from US Energy Information Agency (EIA).

Prolonged period

Analysts expect crude prices to remain relatively low well into 2016 and maybe longer.

"The low of 2009 is in the $34 area, the market is looking to that as we come to the end of the year," said Raymond. "It has been a waiting game for the producers to see if the price can pay for the cost."

OPEC's production in 2016 will remain modestly above the current level, at 31.8 million barrels per day, while that of Iraq, an OPEC member, will be slightly below its current level and Iran, also an OPEC member, will see a modest growth in output, said Damien Courvalin, analyst of Goldman Sachs in a report.

The supply-demand balance in global oil market won't be restored until the fourth quarter of 2016 due to the high surplus, resilient non-OPEC supply, and slightly weaker yet still robust demand growth, Courvalin said.

Goldman Sachs suggested that oil prices could be near $40 per barrel, or roughly the current trading price. It also predicted a worst scenario where prices could hit $20 per barrel.

According to a projection of the EIA, the US crude oil production will average 9.3 million barrels per day this year and fall to 8.8 million barrels per day next year. In addition, the agency forecast that US crude oil prices could average $49 per barrel this year and $51 per barrel next year.

Francisco Blanch, head of Commodities Research at Merrill Lynch, told reporter that a strong US dollar and restrained global growth could create downward near-term pressures on commodity prices -- not just in metals, but also in energy and grains. He predicted that oil balances are set to improve in the second half of 2016, with the combination of global demand and lower non-OPEC output potentially pushing crude oil back up to $55 per barrel.

"We have witnessed a dramatic shift in gas prices that has saved families hundreds of dollars so far this year," said AAA's President and CEO Marshall Doney. "The best news of all is that there is room for prices to drop even more in the coming weeks."

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