In the midst of the current financial quagmire in Nigeria and the spiraling price of Premium Motor Spirit or fuel which has further impoverished many Nigerians, JP Morgan has made another threatening prediction by saying oil price may go as high as $150 per barrel.
The price of crude has a direct impact on the price of PMS or fuel.
High prices of crude oil is good for the Nigerian economy, but not when the country is faced with the current challenges of crude oil theft and non-functionality of the refineries which has resulted in wholesome importation of fuel into the country.
Nigeria is supposed to be producing 1.8 million barrels OPEC+ quota but it has been unable to produce that because of crude oil theft and lack of investment in crude oil production.
JPMorgan’s head of EMEA energy equity research, Christyan Malek, warned markets on Friday that the recent Brent price surge could continue upwards to $150 per barrel by 2026, according to a new research report.
Several catalysts went into the $150 price warning, including capacity shocks, an energy supercycle—and of course, efforts to push the world further away from fossil fuels.
Most recently, crude oil prices have surged on the back of OPEC+ production cuts, mostly led by Saudi Arabia who almost singlehanded took 1 million bpd out of the market, followed by a fuel export ban from Russia. Increased crude demand paired up with the supply restrictions, boosting crude oil prices and contributing to rising consumer prices.
Brent prices were trading around $93.55 on Friday afternoon, but Malek expects Brent prices between $90 and $110 next year, and even higher in 2025.
“Put your seatbelts on. It’s going to be a very volatile supercycle,” Malek told Bloomberg on Friday, as the analyst warned about OPEC’s production cuts and a lack of investment in new oil production.
JPMorgan said in February this year that Oil prices were unlikely to reach $100 per barrel this year unless there was some major geopolitical event that rattled markets, warning that OPEC+ could add in as much as 400,000 bpd to global supplies, with Russia’s oil exports potentially recovering by the middle of this year. At the time, JPMorgan was estimating 770,000 bpd in demand growth from China—less than what the IEA and OPEC were estimating.
JPMorgan now sees the global supply and demand imbalance at 1.1 million bpd in 2025, but growing to a 7.1 million bpd deficit in 2030 as robust demand continues to butt up against limited supply.