高盛：伊朗冲突或推高油价至120美元，建议做多天然气与柴油

Bloomberg Audio Studios podcasts radio news. Welcome to the Daybreak Asia podcast. I'm Doug Krishnner. Many equity markets across the Asia-Pacific are higher as we kick off a new trading week. In the states, markets will be closed on Monday to observe Labor Day. And as a result, there will be no trading in the cash market for US treasuries until the Tokyo session on Tuesday. Crude oil prices are at higher levels. That's after Iran said it targeted three oil tankers using an unauthorized route through the straight of Hormuz.

And a number of US link ships were also targeted in retaliation for American attacks on Iranian oil tankers. The oil story is where we start the conversation with Dan Stryen. Dan is co-head of global commodities research at Goldman Sachs. He spoke with Bloomberg TV host Paul Allen. And I want to start with the oil price. I mean, we heard from the US Treasur uh the US energy secretary Chris Wright as well saying, look, thanks to the US Navy flows through the straight of Hormuz about 2/3 normal.

Of course, it's kind of hard to judge. Is that consistent with your observations?

Yeah. So we estimate that in terms of total oil exports from the Persian Gulf countries that you are at roughly uh 16 million barrels per day relative to a pre-war average of 23 million barrels per day. So that is roughly uh 2/3 with important contributions from pipelines uh and also dark flows that initially don't show up in the data but eventually show up as the data tend to be revised higher once the ships turn on their transponders.

Mhm. Um the key question is where is oil heading? Are we going to be locked in the sort of $80 to $100 barrel a range range for as long as this conflict endures or can you see a scenario where the price breaks out in either direction? Yeah. So I think the most important variable for crude oil prices is the amount of oil exports uh from the Gulf. Um in a scenario where um exports from the region uh normalize we would see 80 as uh the brand oil price which is essentially in line with the fair value based on the level of OC commercial stocks right now.

In an upside price scenario where shipping attacks broaden and and intensify, uh we see brand potentially reaching $120 uh per barrel and the events over the last few days uh do suggest that the risk of shipping disruptions broadening and intensifying is an important one. While we see meaningful upside to crude oil prices, we do recommend to investors to hedge geopolitical risks by going long in global natural gas and refined oil products where the supply shocks are bigger than in the crude market.

Yeah. Well, exhibit A, global diesel prices. Where do you see these heading?

Yeah. So, um we recommend to investors to hedge geopolitical risks by buying uh deferred diesel prices 2027 uh diesel prices. Um while spot diesel prices uh and especially diesel margins are essentially at all-time highs, markets price in a very significant uh moderation in diesel prices and we think that if you see ongoing refinary supply constraints either in the Middle East or in Russia where Ukrainian drone attacks are having u an important effect that it's quite likely that those very elevated diesel prices extend uh into into next year.

Can you talk to us about your observations on the demand side of the equation as well? I'm thinking particularly looking ahead to the northern hemisphere winter. What if we get an unseasonably warm winter because the summer has certainly been pretty warm. How do you see this impacting the demand side? Yeah. So, um if you were to see a mild winter, that could potentially uh prevent uh global LNG, European and Asian natural gas prices uh from spiking to very high levels.

Even if exports of LG from the Middle East don't pick up under a normal average winter temperature uh setup, we would expect uh European DTF and Asian JM natural gas prices to rise roughly 40% from here. So that's a greater upside than to to crude prices because inventory levels for natural gas are very low 35% below the 5-year average uh in in Europe and winter seasonality is much more important for natural gas which is primarily used in the winter as a heating oil than for for oil where the share of heating in in oil demand has trended down over the last few decades.

Well, we need to talk about China as well which built up substantial inventories. But do you see China needing to return to the market in the coming months and and where might it get its energy needs from?

So we think that China will continue to act as a stabilizing force in global uh crude markets moderating the upside to crude prices in contrast to uh product markets and natural gas markets where we think China is not playing the same stabilizing role. We estimate that Chinese crude imports are down roughly 35% year-over-year with a two-thirds contribution from price sensitive demand with switches to both power and coal and a one-/ird contribution from a switch in stock piling in 2025 to modestly stocking uh this year.

We think both drivers of low imports are price sensitive and largely sustainable because China crude stocks are still very high and because structurally China has more flexibility in its energy system to to tune up or or dial down oil consumption as a function of prices.

Of course, in these scenarios where there's so much uncertainty around energy prices, it makes sense to go looking for alternatives. How much permanent demand destruction do you see happening for oil at the moment? Yeah. So, uh, global oil demand um was roughly 7% uh below its strength um when uh in Q2 uh demand was was the weakest. That is uh an extremely large uh amount of demand destruction that we haven't really seen in prior supply driven shocks.

Uh we only saw greater demand damage during the the co uh pandemic. Our working assumption um is that um roughly uh 75 to 80% of that demand weakness is temporary um assuming productivability and product prices moderate somewhat that the remaining roughly 20 25% uh is sticky and and is structural but we're seeing a surge in global EV sales especially uh in China so I think the risks are skewed to our a greater part uh of the demand weakness we're we're seeing uh being being persistent.

We're also seeing tremendous US investments in Venezuelan oil assets. How do you see potential Venezuelan supply coming online affecting this picture going forward? I mean, this is a longerterm story, right?

Yes. Venezuelan crude production has edged up somewhat from 0.9 MB late last year to now something like 1.2 MB. We pencil in some additional uh increases in incoming quarters. Um, but I would characterize those as the lowhanging uh barrels to see really sharp increases above call it 2 million barrels per day. I think it would require uh time capex and um policy certainty especially from the Venezuelan side. So we think that's going to going to take time.

Zooming out, Venezuelan is a relatively small contributor to the strength in America's uh oil production at the moment. Especially the US and Brazil have seen very significant supply growth over the last year which along with demand weakness mostly from China has actually implied an oil market deficit that's smaller than expected which is the key reason uh why crude prices uh are just under $100 per barrel rather than $150 per barrel.

Oil is so closely linked to your one of your other areas of expertise of course the gold price. We're seeing gold very firm at the moment. Do you see more upside here? Yes, we see an additional 11% price upside by year end with gold at $4,900 uh per troy ounce with two-sided but net upside risk. The two reasons we recommend to investors to go along and stay on gold are one we think the price trend will remain your friend as central banks keep buying and second we think that gold offers some uh important diversification and targeted hedging benefits.

Can I add a third the currency debasements?

I would see th