Oil Price Upside Looks Limited, Commerzbank Says

Wall Street Journal

17-04-2025

1327 GMT – Oil prices advance in afternoon trade, but further upside might be capped due to uncertainties over U.S. tariffs and ample global supplies in the near term, according to Commerzbank CBK -1.73%decrease; red down pointing triangle Research analysts. Brent crude rises 1.5% to $66.84 a barrel, while WTI is up 1.7% to $62.86 a barrel. Both benchmarks are on track to notch weekly gains of around 5%, boosted by the latest U.S. sanctions on Iranian oil exports. 'Iran recently exported 1.6 million barrels of crude oil per day,' says Thu Lan Nguyen, head of FX and commodity research, citing Bloomberg data. 'The U.S. Treasury Secretary declared his willingness to take all measures to reduce this to zero. However, this is unlikely to be possible so quickly.' Commerzbank analysts expect global oil markets to remain amply supplied, in part due to larger-than-anticipated output increases from OPEC and its allies. ([e-mail])
1025 GMT – Fitch Ratings lowered its oil price forecast for this year on expectations of lower economic growth due to trade tariffs and higher-than-expected production increases from OPEC+ members. 'We forecast global oil demand growth to be well below 1 million barrels per day in 2025 due to slower global economic growth, particularly in China, and further weakness in the petrochemicals sector, which is already in a downturn,' the credit rating agency says. Fitch now estimates Brent crude at $65 a barrel and WTI at $60 a barrel, both down $5 a barrel from previous projections. ([e-mail])