Bullish Goldman Sachs Slashes Oil Price Forecast

Long time bear Goldman Sachs Group has revised its year-end price estimate for Brent to below US$90. The bank had previously made two downward revisions in the last six months.

The investment bank lowered its Brent outlook for December to US$86 a barrel, down from US$95 a barrel, slashing it by almost 10%, owing to a rising supply and reducing demand. Weak Chinese economic data has prompted the bank to slash its outlook for crude prices.

Factory gate prices, the price distributors paid producers, fell faster than expected in May, as reduced demand dampened the recovery in manufacturing sector. Also, the country's exports thinned much faster than expected in May. Imports extended declines raising concerns about a slow post-pandemic economic recovery.

On June 4, dominant OPEC member Saudi Arabia said it would cut production by another million barrels per day, effective July. Overall, OPEC made no changes to its planned oil production cuts for the rest of 2023. Though Brent gained as much as US$2.6 on last Monday soon after the Saudi announcement, prices edged lower on Tuesday, giving up most of the prior session's gains.

UBS forecast

Despite the modest market reaction to the Saudi-led oil production curbs, UBS said the kingdom's decision to slash output should further support prices into the second half of 2023. Global wealth manager UBS has forecast that Brent crude will reach US$95 a barrel by the end of 2023.

"We keep oil as most preferred and forecast Brent crude at US$95 a barrel by end-2023, up from US$77.90/bbl at present," Mark Haefele, Global Wealth Management CIO at UBS said. Reuters reported that oil prices edged lower on Monday ahead of a Fed meeting, while concerns about China's fuel demand growth and rising Russian crude supply weighed on the market.

Brent crude futures fell 29 cents, or 0.4%, to US$74.50 a barrel by 00:58 GMT.