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View Full Version : Giant Fund manager says Oil will reach $130 this year.


Bill
03-09-2008, 10:35 PM
And $150 next year. I suspect he is underestimating.

This article accurately discusses the commodification of oil futures.

Yes, the big investors are moving money to oil commodities, and that increases demand for futures contracts.

But, as the article says, oil is a desireable commodity futures investment right now becuase - "The outlook for oil over the next five years is also “bullish” as producers find it hard to replenish reserves, and demand outpaces supply".

It is fundamental problems with supply and demand that make oil futures a desireable buy right now - because the easy oil of the past is almost all gone, and the rest, especially the rest controlled by non-opec nations, is going to be much harder and more expensive to find and extract.

Even if places like Iraq come fully online, it won't fully cover the shortfall from our other providers.

http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=206139&version=1&template_id=48&parent_id=28

Crude oil may reach a record $130 a barrel this year because pension funds are investing more in commodities, said Pierre Andurand, the chief investment officer of BlueGold Capital Management, a hedge fund.

The outlook for oil over the next five years is also “bullish” as producers find it hard to replenish reserves, and demand outpaces supply, London-based Andurand said.

Oil companies such as ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell and BP are finding it tougher to replace their findings and are drilling for harder-to-reach deposits while energy demand and crude prices surge to records.

With commodities prices surging to all-time highs, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, the largest US pension fund, said it plans to boost investments.

“There’s a lot of index funds flowing into oil, and the world is under-invested in commodities, especially pension funds,” said Andurand, who used to trade energy derivatives in Singapore and London for Vitol Group.

“Oil is now a medium-to- long-term outlook story, and it’s bullish in terms of fundamentals of production constraints.”

Calpers, which has about $240bn in assets, agreed at a February 19 board meeting to hold between 0.5% and 3% of its assets in commodities, spokesman Clark McKinley said on February 28. The Sacramento, California-based fund last year put $450mn into commodities - its first such investment.
With crude oil trading above $100 a barrel, competition among producers to find untapped reserves has caused a worldwide shortage of rigs and crews.

“Next year, oil may rise even further to $150 a barrel,” said Andurand, whose $300mn fund has so far invested 70% in energy and 30% in agriculture and metals since February.

Bill
03-09-2008, 10:46 PM
Might as well add this - another article that mentions the speculator theory.

Note the claim that "most experts believe oil will end 2008 at about $70 a barrel".

Betcha it doesn't.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/mar/09/oil

Harsh truth behind oil at $105 a barrel

Today, at over $100 a barrel, the oil price has never been higher, but there is widespread disagreement over why it's so expensive. One explanation is that the price is being driven up by speculators seeking a hedge against the falling dollar and rising inflation.

Is that all? If the answer is yes, the oil boom could end the same way as the dotcom bust of seven years ago when shareholders inflated the price of technology and internet companies, only to see values crash when sentiment changed.

But for a fuller explanation, look at the trend in supply and demand. According to energy consultant Wood Mackenzie, which has used its own research as well as that of the International Energy Agency, consumption of oil has been rising for years and will continue to do so as China, Brazil and India industrialise at a heady pace.

WM says global energy consumption has jumped from 1.48 tonnes per capita in 1971 to 1.79 tonnes in 2006. As demand soars from the emerging economies of Asia and Latin America, consumption will rise more sharply.

WM believes things could get sticky in 20 years because at that point we will be almost wholly dependent on oil from Opec, especially Saudi Arabia, with all its geopolitical implications. Of course, new discoveries could come on stream, which makes it difficult to provide accurate forecasts about the future price of oil.

A global economic slowdown should constrain the price in the near term which is why most experts believe oil will end 2008 at about $70 a barrel.

But can we afford to be complacent? WM points out that the number of cars on the roads in China is increasing at a rate of 20 per cent a year. As oil accounts for 95 per cent of global transportation energy, this is a worrying statistic.

The harsh truth behind the surge in the oil price is that when it comes to keeping warm, driving cars and running factories, the world is still heavily reliant on fossil fuels for its energy needs - and those needs are increasing as developing countries become richer.