PABLO GALANTE ESCOBAR, HEAD OF LNG, GAS & POWER AT VITOL "The (gas supply) situation was helped by an incredibly mild winter in Europe but as well as in Asia that has created a false sense of security." "At these prices demand is now coming back. China had reduced LNG demand by 15 million tonnes and we expect around half of that to come back this year and European demand is coming back."
TORBJORN TORNQVIST, CEO OF GUNVOR
"Russian oil is likely trading below the (G7 price) cap but again these companies are not transparent. We can only guess."
"The companies, a few individuals probably doing this, are located in the Middle East and Far East. Technially they are not doing anything wrong and Russia is willing to extend a great deal of credit"
RUSSELL HARDY, CEO OF VITOL "LNG supplies to refill what we're missing from Russia won't be there until 2026 to 2027 so this rationing process will have to continue but it won't have to be as severe as we thought six months ago.
"The last three years there has been a lot of volatility and the answer is to reinvest our profits into our businesses. We have about $2 billion in capital expenditure going in: $500 million into renewables and $500 million into power plants etc. "2023 will be very different from 2022 in terms of volatility and profit margins. 2023 is a much more conservative market going forward."
PIERRE ANDURAND, HEAD OF ANDURAND CAPITAL
"Taking a back of the envelope calculation, the big change
over the next decade is EVs (electric vehicles) and it takes 10
years to make a new fleet of cars. You lose 5% of gasoline
demand a year, you will lose eventually 1.2 million bpd (barrels
of oil per day) every year.
"Even when we peak, oil demand won't fall down so fast. We
will reach peak demand towards 110 million barrels per day and
then there will be slow decline from there."
HELIMA CROFT, HEAD OF GLOBAL COMMODITIES, RBC CAPITAL
MARKETS
"The question for the back of the year, if you can't do
another blockbuster U.S. SPR (Strategic Petroleum Reserve) oil
release then you rely on the Saudis ... they may send your call
to voicemail."
STEPHANE DEGENNE, CO-HEAD OF TRADING, GUNVOR GROUP "People got scared on the oil situation, especially with gasoil. Russian gasoil is now leaving Europe to go to the Middle East and Asia. It needs to be replaced, creating a lot of logistical bottlenecks. "With all these new refineries coming on stream, we are not very bullish refined oil products down the road."
"For the time being, we are in a bit of a standback. We are very little involved in the Russian business. The world doesn't need us. The oil is flowing.
"It's a moving target at the moment. Sanctions can change very quickly. We are staying prudent."
BEN LUCKOCK, CO-HEAD OF OIL TRADING, TRAFIGURA
Luckock sees severe under-investment in new oil production,
and demand is still growing.
"No one is doing 15-year deep water fields off Angola
anymore ... I think we are in for a period of volatility in oil
prices that will be higher than here. The oil price will be in
the $80s a barrel by late summer."
"The unintended consequence of the policy. You spend decades
building an incredibly efficient logistics chain out of Russia
... and you had people who'd done it for a long time. You have
twofold impact, big companies removed themselves and more
skilled ship owners and then the buyers changed.
"The danger is that you have people who are less experienced
and certainly less transparent running the market and that's a
big step back.
(Reporting by Julia Payne; Editing by Jan Harvey, Mark Potter
and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
