油价走高但仍不是需求反弹信号

据9月10日Investing.com报道，油价正在走高，但仍未达到让石油行业恢复元气所需的反弹助力水平，尤其是在最近油价大幅下跌的情况下。不过令人鼓舞的是，随着价格走高，价差有所收窄，但12月20日/ 12月21日WTI的期货溢价仍然坚挺，这是最不具前瞻性的预期。

但在目前的价格水平上，贸易公司可能会开始考虑购买以备未来交割，并可能开始竞购离岸储存。在油轮费率如此低迷的情况下，如果欧佩克没有进一步干预，且油轮利率保持有利，贸易公司的需求可能提供强劲的支撑。

原油价格下跌的催化剂还包括股票市场的抛售，尤其是特斯拉（Tesla）的科技股似乎出现了泡沫，反原油交易的缩影，本周大幅下跌。因此，当股市再次飙升时，油价将会推高，这也是有道理的，而这正是一夜之间发生的事情。不过，投资者可能需要填补周二纳斯达克市场的空白，才能推动油价进一步上涨。

当然，人们对新冠肺炎疫情的担忧仍然存在，需要采取微妙的平衡措施，以使经济恢复到新的正常状态，并控制北半球可能出现的病例上升。

在这方面，阿斯利康昨天暂停了所有疫苗临床试验，这无疑扰乱了石油市场，过去一个月，石油市场开始对疫苗成功变得乐观。据英国《金融时报》报道，阿斯利康公司的新冠肺炎病毒试验可能在下周恢复，疫苗前途明朗。在一名英国参与者出现不明原因的疾病后，这家制药公司暂停了疫苗试验。

事实上，布伦特原油超45美元/桶的价格已经提前复苏，因为大部分低空看涨的仓位已经被消费殆尽。同时，交易员们发现自己处于牛市的尽头，还一头撞上了最大的价格障碍之一，即“夏末”季节性需求的减弱。因此，市场进入了不能上升必须下降的模式，因为获利回吐。

尽管如此，由于今年夏天美国的驾车和旅行处于历史上的低迷水平，需求方面受到的影响可以从疲软的炼油利润率中看出，这促使沙特10月份减产。在美国达成刺激协议或美国就业数据出现更广泛改善之前，情况不太可能好转。

王佳晶 摘译自 Investing.com

原文如下：

Asia Session: Oil Trading Higher, But Still Not The Rallying Cry Needed

Oil is trading higher, but still not the rallying cry needed to get the oil complex back on its feet, especially in the wake of the latest precipitous falls. Encouragingly though, as prices shift higher, spreads have tightened a bit, but the contango remains solid with the WTI Dec20/Dec21 -3.62 and provides the poorest forward-looking optics of them all.

But at these levels, trading houses might begin to think about buying for future delivery and could start bidding for offshore storage, which is typically the case when tanker rates are as depressed as they are right now. The slope and curve economics are not quite there at the moment, but in the absence of further OPEC interventions, should the curve steepen more and tanker rates remain favorable, trading house demand could provide a keen level of support.

The catalyst for the fall in crude has also been the sell-off in equity markets and especially what appears to have been a bubble in tech stocks where Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA), the epitome of the anti-crude oil play, tumbled massively this week. So it would make sense also that as stock markets surge again, oil prices will push higher, and that's exactly what happened overnight. Still, investors may need to fill Tuesday's Nasdaq gap to get oil prices kicking into a larger gear.

In the background, of course, continues to be COVID concerns and the delicate balancing act needed to return economies to a new normal and manage the likely rise in cases in the northern hemisphere when social activities move indoors, and the virus could spread more aggressively.

In this regard, AstraZeneca (NYSE:AZN) pausing all vaccine clinical trials yesterday certainly roiled the oil markets that had started to become more optimistic about a vaccine over the last month. However, there is light at the end of the vaccine tunnel as AstraZeneca's COVID-19 trials may resume next week, according to the Financial Times. The drugmaker had suspended its vaccine trials after an unexplained illness in a UK participant. And this pivot is being consumed on the positive side of the ledger.

In reality, prices above Brent $45/bbl were getting ahead of the recovery as most of the low hanging bullish fruit had been consumed. And traders simultaneously found themselves at the end of the bullish runway running headlong long into one of the biggest price impediments of them all, the "end of summer" seasonality waning demand. So markets shifted into what can't go up must go down mode as profit-taking initially got the ball rolling downhill, then all the rest of the knowns pilled on top.

Still, with driving and travel in the US at a historically depressed level this past summer, the impacted demand side can be seen in the weak refining margin environment prompting the cut in Saudi OSPs for October. And the thought here is that things are unlikely to turn better until we get a US stimulus agreement or broader improvements are seen in the US employment data.