Oil is driven up

Finance Minister Kudrin predicts oil price of $ 150-200 per barrel. However, this level will not be held long and oil will return to today's value. Many experts predict a smaller growth. There are skeptics. In fact, in a situation of world confusion, forecasts are little worth it.

Against the backdrop of situations in the Middle East and Japan, in the near future, world oil prices can grow to $ 150-200 per barrel. Such a forecast at the conference of the Association of Regional Banks in Moscow was made by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Alexei Kudrin. Growth, according to him, will be speculative and short in length. After that, oil will return to a level below $ 100 per barrel, Kudrin believes, referring to the opinion of analysts.

Kudrin believes that it is impossible to talk about a systemic disaster, but high oil prices (above $ 100-110) negatively affect the world economy, increasing costs, which automatically reduces demand.

The head of the Ministry of Finance also hopes that the Japanese economy can replace oil fuel with gas, so gas prices have increased and Gazprom’s capitalization has increased in recent days. As for the oil market, then, according to the minister, the situation in Japan has a contradictory effect. At first, oil prices have fallen, but Kudrin expects that in the near future there will be a increase in oil markets. At the same time, according to the head of the Ministry of Finance, it is impossible to make long -term forecasts now.

If long -term forecasts are impossible, then the price corridor indicated by Kudrin is some fiction. However, in the words of the minister there is the truth that oil speculators will really try to play on raising in the conditions of an ongoing war in Libya, an unpredictable situation on the Arabian Peninsula (the day before, at the request of the Bahrain authorities, the troops of neighboring states entered the country) and catastrophes in Japan. And the pouting bubble will really burst pretty soon, because there are no fundamental reasons for growth.

So far, there is a fixation in the markets against the background of the previous fall and news from Bahrain. Asian recovered from the shock fall of the previous days - the Japanese Nikkei today played half of yesterday's fall of 10.5 percent.

Dreaming oil is growing. Today, the Brent stamps were played by yesterday’s oil brands yesterday’s fall and oil was already trading at the level of 110-112 dollars per barrel (yesterday at the closing of the sites it was 108). Russian Urals raised to $ 107.

International investment bankers in their forecasts are not as radical as the Russian Minister of Finance.

Goldman Sachs has already raised the forecast for the second quarter of 2011, Brent oil prices by $ 4.5 to $ 105 per barrel, raising Bank of America-Merrill Lynch even more radical-from 86 to 122 dollars per barrel. The short -term excess of oil prices is also predicted above $ 140 per barrel. However, the average forecast price, although increased, but not so astronomical heights - Merrill Lynch set it at 108, analysts Danske Bank when analyzing the ruble exchange rate proceed from a price of $ 111 per barrel.

Back in early February, Brent oil cost less than a hundred dollars, but after intensifying the armed confrontation in Libya on February 24, she took a bar of $ 110. At that time, at a meeting with members of the European Commission, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin reacted to a galloping growth in the spirit that for Russia, as for the EU, such growth is harmful. “However, we are now seeing the risks and threats associated with rising energy prices, today the price of $ 118 per barrel for Brent oil is already recorded, and this is a serious threat to economic growth in the world,” he said, noting that Russia is interested in “fair price” for oil.

World leaders and economists are afraid of what - the increase in fuel prices provokes the growth of other prices and reduces the consumer activity of households (more money is spent on gasoline and goods, in the price of which the price of oil is relatively much). In the future, the whole global economy slows down. The International Energy Agency is still quite neat from the prospects for price growth, but admits that an increase in oil prices by ten percent will reduce 0.2 - 0.7 percent in the first year and twice as much in the second year.

Meanwhile, there are skeptical observations on the growth of oil prices. “If it weren’t for the disasters in Japan, given that the troops of Saudi Arabia entered Bahrain, oil prices would have risen to $ 120,” Purvin & Gertz quoted Bloomberg in Singapore.

“Japan is one of the world's largest oil consumers, but now about a third of oil consumers have no access to oil pipelines. At the same time, Nymex speculators have now bought oil contracts in an amount equivalent to monthly imports in the United States. And at this moment, the volume of consumption is sharply reduced. The oil futures market is now very bought. Therefore, it is adjusted, and in the near future I do not see the opportunity for growth. But at the same time, the demand for petroleum products and gas is growing, ”Schork Report, Schork Report, Stephen Shork (quote for RBC), said.

The situation is so vague - both in Libya, and on the Arabian Peninsula, and in Japan that

The forecast turns from simply ungrateful business into extremely ungrateful.

How to not recall Gazprom’s reproaches by Alexei Miller, who promised the price of oil of $ 250 three months before the collapse of world markets in 2008.