Oil prices fall for the second day in a row. A barrel of Brent mix is cheaper by about 1%.
Not even data from OPEC. In its monthly report, the cartel said cut production in February by nearly 200 thousand barrels per day. The decrease mostly attributable to lower shipments from Iraq amid supply disruptions in particular regions of the country. So fundamentally positive aspects not too much. But the main negative factor for the oil market was Iran, which, however, was quite expected.
During his visit to Tehran, Russian energy Minister Alexander Novak was unable to persuade the Iranian colleagues to take the decision to suspend production at the January level. Country, of course, ready to accede to the agreement of the countries-exporters, but only after reaching a production level of 4 million barrels per day. Now she is 3,130 million barrels.
Production of countries outside of the cartel should be reduced in 2016 to 700 thousand barrels per day. Similar figures were given in the previous forecast, but in Russia, the decline will be less significant than expected: by the end of the year it will have declined by only 20 thousand barrels per day.
Background
According to Novak, in April will be a new round of talks on stabilizing the oil market. Would result in a signed MOU or joint statement.
“If not to secure a decision, there will be uncertainty in the market and this will lead to greater volatility. Now as an option is considered that, probably, will be signed a certain document, and perhaps a General statement countries. From my point of view, should be signed agreement or Memorandum or a public joint statement,” – said the Minister.
In the end oil prices on Monday fell by about 2%, but the rouble has managed to maintain this position. The market reacted positively to reports about the withdrawal of Russian troops from Syria, on this news the Euro and the dollar lost approximately one dollar.
However, this is a rather controversial factor, the more movement occurred during the evening session, so in the near future, the correlation with oil prices will resume.
A much more significant impact on the foreign exchange market is the fact that today the expiring quarterly options and futures contracts on pair dollar/rouble.
If you look at the Board of options, it becomes clear that the big players once again did what they wanted, and earned good profit.
In the next series, the volume of open positions is still too small to draw any conclusions, so you need to be patient and wait a little.
