Recently, a number of multinational oil companies issued semi-annual reports. In addition to Saudi Aramco, the world's largest oil company, six oil giants including Shell, BP, ExxonMobil, Total, Chevron and ConocoPhillips all suffered huge losses. Among them, BP and Shell suffered the biggest losses, which were US$ 265,438+US$ 0.265,438+US$ 300 million and US$ 65,438+US$ 0.865,438+US$ 55 million respectively.
Comparatively speaking, because the domestic epidemic situation was effectively controlled earlier, various industries resumed work in the fast lane, and oil companies performed better than international oil companies in all aspects. China petroleum and petrochemical enterprises achieved positive growth in net profit in June.
The crude oil market is recovering.
On August 19, the OPEC+Oil Ministerial Meeting was held, and the market expected to reduce production from 9.7 million barrels per day to 7.7 million barrels. At the same time, the number of active drilling wells in the United States decreased continuously 15 weeks, and it is expected that the shale oil production in the United States will continue to decline.
In fact, since July, the implementation rate of OPEC+production reduction agreement has been around 97%, and oil producers have been cutting production to control supply and reduce global inventories.
For the crude oil market, there are two uncertain factors that still plague the oil price trend. One is the recovery of the global epidemic, and the other is the implementation of production reduction in oil-producing countries.
In Xi Jiarui's view, the global anti-epidemic has made progress in stages, countries continue to liberalize the "blockade", and at the same time, there will be important economic stimulus plans to follow up. Under this premise, the global demand for crude oil is expected to increase steadily, which will support the price of crude oil. At the same time, oil-producing countries are expected to continue to reduce production. After making up the share of production reduction, OPEC+will adjust the scale of production reduction according to the supply and demand situation of crude oil market to maintain the oil price back to a relatively reasonable operating range.
It is worth mentioning that the crude oil production in the United States may further decline. Low oil prices have impacted the shale oil industry chain in the United States. The bankruptcy of oil companies and the closure of oil wells make it difficult for the American oil industry to recover in a short time. The global crude oil supply will continue to shrink in the second half of the year, so oil prices are expected to rebound further.
According to the forecast data of EIA, in the second half of 2020, the global crude oil market will reproduce the supply gap, which is mainly caused by the demand growth rate exceeding the supply growth rate; The crude oil supply gap will gradually increase in the third quarter and moderately shrink in the fourth quarter. The average supply gap in the second half of the year is about 3,654,380+0.3 million barrels per day. If this is the basis, the international oil price will show a moderate downward trend in the second half of the year.
Xi Jiarui believes that although there are still many uncertainties in the second half of the year, compared with the first half of the year, the overall situation of the crude oil market will pick up. It is estimated that the mainstream operating range of WTI and Brent in the second half of the year will be $35/barrel to $55/barrel and $38/barrel to $60/barrel respectively.
Zhongyu Information Crude Oil Research Group judges that the oil price will show a step-by-step upward trend in the second half of the year, but the price ceiling will not be too high. It is judged that the absolute price of Brent crude oil futures will be lower than $55/barrel, and the absolute price of WTI crude oil futures will be around $50/barrel. Brent may be in the range of $45/barrel to $49/barrel in 2020.
The most difficult period for oil companies has passed.
In March of this year, the plunge in crude oil prices made the market "witness history" again. At that time, OPEC's production reduction negotiations broke down, and Saudi Arabia took the lead in launching a "price war" on oil. Coupled with the negative impact of demand caused by the global spread of the COVID-19 epidemic, oil prices fell rapidly, and Brent oil prices once fell below $20.
The sharp drop in international oil prices and the impact of the epidemic have made oil giants cry in the first half of this year.
Up to now, the six major international oil giants have announced their second-quarter financial reports. According to statistics, the total losses of these six multinational oil companies in the second quarter reached 53.693 billion US dollars (about 374.8 billion yuan), and the total losses in the first half of the year were 54.572 billion US dollars (about 380.972 billion yuan).
Zhang Yonghao believes that the main reason for the loss of international oil companies is the collapse of demand caused by the COVID-19 epidemic, which led to a sharp drop in refined oil consumption.
Recently, however, Saudi Aramco, the "boss of global oil companies", gave the market some confidence. Its financial report for the first half of 2020 shows that its net profit for the first half of this year was about $23.2 billion, down 50.5% from $46.9 billion in the same period last year.
A Min Nasser, CEO of Saudi Aramco, said: "Global oil demand is recovering, the worst period has passed, and our long-term demand for oil is still quite optimistic."
Sinopec also said at the press conference of a quarterly report that it is gradually coming out of the most difficult period.
In fact, the gradual improvement of the crude oil market since the second half of the year has also confirmed the above statement.
For domestic oil companies, especially for three barrels of oil, it has been quite effective to reduce costs and increase efficiency after the last round of oil price collapse. With the recovery of the crude oil market, oil companies have ushered in good news.
According to the economic operation of central enterprises in the first half of 2020 released by the State Council Office, the net profit of petroleum and petrochemical enterprises increased by 7.90% year-on-year in June, and the monthly benefits achieved positive growth for the first time in the year.
Sinopec recently said on the investor platform that low oil prices will bring great challenges to the upstream business, while for the downstream business, the low oil price environment will promote the consumption of refined oil, which is conducive to the stability and better refining gross profit. At the same time, low oil prices will also effectively reduce the cost of chemical raw materials and enhance the chemical competitiveness of naphtha. In 2020, the company will give full play to its integration advantages, vigorously reduce costs and fees, strive to cultivate new growth points, and actively respond to the difficulties and challenges brought about by low oil prices.
Everbright Securities Research Report said that under the pessimistic expectation scenario, due to the integration of refining and marketing, the advantages of Sinopec's sales link will make the decline in refining profits have little impact on its overall performance. In the long run, the company's profitability and return on investment are still considerable.