美國能源信息署(EIA)署長預測：未來18個月油價跌破$100

美國能源信息署(EIA)署長Guy Caruso預測：未來18個月油價跌破$100/B

美國能源信息署(EIA)署長Guy Caruso日前表示，由於全球需求降低以及石油產量提高，未來18個月原油價格可能跌破每桶100美元。

Caruso在華盛頓召開的普氏能源資訊能源講壇(Platts Energy Podium)提出了上述看法。他表示：“我認為隨著全球需求的降低，以及美國、巴西、加拿大以及歐佩克成員國石油產量的增加，油價有可能跌破每桶100美元。”

Caruso說，如果全球剩餘產能繼續從當前的每天150萬桶提高至每天300萬桶到400萬桶，而全球石油需求疲軟，那麽對石油價格下跌情況的猜測就更接近於實際情況。

Caruso將於9月份離開美國能源信息署。他說：“如今這一情況比過去5年內任何時候都更有可能出現。”Caruso還指出，隨著OPEC就是否削減產量進行討論，油價的下跌也使“OPEC產生內部衝突成為可能”。

****************************************************************

EIA chief: Oil could fall below $100
Asia Pulse - 27/08/2008

http://www.menafn.com/qn_print.asp?StoryID=1093209708&subl=true

(MENAFN - Asia Pulse) Crude oil prices "could" fall below $100 per barrel over the next 18 months on slowing worldwide demand and an increase in oil production, Energy Information Administration (EIA) chief Guy Caruso said Tuesday.

Caruso made the comment to reporters at the Platts Energy Podium in Washington.

I think [prices] could fall below $100 a barrel on slowing global demand and rising production in the US, Brazil and Canada, and from OPEC states such as Saudi Arabia and Angola," Caruso said.

While Caruso said "most of the risk is on the upside," and that it was not the official EIA prediction, he added that a scenario of falling oil prices is "now closer to 50-50" if worldwide spare production capacity continues to increase from the current 1.5 million barrels per day (b/d) to 3-4 million b d while global oil demand softens.

"That scenario is now more realistic than any time in the past five years," said Caruso, who will leave EIA in September.

A decline in oil prices also "opens up the possibility of conflict in OPEC" as the producers' group debates whether to trim output, Caruso said.

EIA earlier this month said it expected oil to remain at $120 to $130/b in 2008. Crude oil prices reached a record $147.27/b on July 11. Prices have fallen more than 20% since then on waning demand.

Caruso also reiterated that releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, or the home heating oil reserve, would have little effect on prices. "I think it would be more valuable to save it for real emergencies," he said.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats, including Senator Barack Obama, the presumptive presidential nominee, have urged releasing about 70 million barrels of crude oil from the nation's emergency reserve, about 10% of the US supply, to cut gasoline prices.

Caruso said that even if oil prices continued to fall, it would be unlikely that many policies, such as the Renewable Fuels Standard, which requires the use of 9 billion gallons of biofuels in the US in 2008, might be rolled back or reduced.

There's no going back," he said. "We're near a tipping point here."

Caruso said that the debate in Congress over more drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf and the Gulf of Mexico as well as reining in oil speculators also had little to do with the decline in crude oil prices. Increasing oil "by small increments over long periods of time doesn't have a lot of impact on price."