Rig Counts Tick Up, Remain at Low Levels
September 28, 2020
The Baker Hughes Rig Count was up 4 crude oil rigs bringing the total crude rigs to 183. Last year at this time there were 713 crude rigs in operation. The rig count has seen very minor increase the last two weeks but is still at very low levels.
The US dollar index rose to a 2-month high last week putting pressure on commodities.
Also putting some sell pressure on energy prices was the new restriction put on by Germany, Great Britain, and France to help curb the spread the COVID-19.
Royal Dutch Shell has provisionally booked the Amoureux tanker to load a 1 million barrel crude cargo at Libya’s Zuetiana terminal on October 3rd. This is more barrels out of Libya.
Iran’s oil exports have increased sharply in September in defiance of US sanctions, according to assessments based on tanker tracking showed. Data from TankerTrackers and two other tracking firms indicated exports are increasing to between 400,000 bpd and 1.5 million bpd. TankerTrackers data showed that the amount was twice that of August and around 11% of it was ultra-light crude, known as condensate.
Goldman Sachs estimates global oil demand of 93.3 million bpd in mid-September, down 8.5 million bpd compared with pre-COVID expectations. It expects a further 1.8 million bpd increase in global oil demand from September to December. It expects demand to increase by 3.7 million bpd from January to August next year and to reach at the end of 2019 levels by late next year. It reiterated that it expects the price of Brent crude to reach $65 per barrel by the third quarter of 2021.