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Replies to post #196 on iPath S&P GSCI Crude Oil Ttl Ret Idx ETN (OIL)
05/25/16 10:56 AM
A factor that has supported oil prices for much of this year has been the persistent “contango”, which means that prices for future delivery of oil are significantly ahead of spot prices, probably caused by the market’s erroneous expectation that the shutting down of capacity will lead to a shortage and thus higher prices. This belief, coupled with high production, has led to an armada of ships bulging with Crude, sitting offshore, with the owners holding the mistaken belief that they will get higher prices later. Thus, the dramatic development of the past few weeks, during which the contango has collapsed, so that it has already become uneconomic to store oil offshore, means that the screw is now being turned on owners storing oil offshore. With the market glutted, and contangos collapsing, owners are being forced into the bizarre position of resorting to debt-funded storage, a highly anomalous solution that is clearly untenable over the longer-term. What this means is that a large number of bulging ships are soon going to race to shore to disgorge their cargoes for what they can get, a development that could magnify the downturn in oil that we are expecting into a rout of plunging prices, made worse by the fact that prices have been artificially elevated by excess storage in expectation of rising prices, which has so far been a self-fulfilling prophecy – but when all storage capacity, onshore and offshore, has been used up, that’s it, it’s game over, and that appears to be the situation that we have arrived at.
07/31/16 10:02 AM
