The anti-freeze in the oil market

A lack of agreement in Doha over freezing oil production sent the oil bulls rushing to unwind their positions.

Oil bulls suffered a nasty setback early this week. Before last weekend's meeting in Doha, aimed at freezing output, optimism over a deal propelled net long positions bets on continued oil price rises in the futures market to a record high. But there was no agreement after all: Saudi Arabia insisted it wouldn't freeze output if Iran didn't do the same which it wouldn't. Hedge funds rushed to unwind their bets, exacerbating the fall in prices. Brent crude slipped by 7% to $40 a barrel before bouncing back.

A freeze "was never an option for Tehran", says BreakingViews.com's Andy Critchlow. Having just emerged from international isolation, now that sanctions are being eased it wants to regain market share and boost production to pre-embargo levels. This is bad news for Iraq, Nigeria and Venezuela in particular, who are forfeiting around $465m in daily revenue at today's prices.

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Andrew Van Sickle
Editor, MoneyWeek

Andrew is the editor of MoneyWeek magazine. He grew up in Vienna and studied at the University of St Andrews, where he gained a first-class MA in geography & international relations.

After graduating he began to contribute to the foreign page of The Week and soon afterwards joined MoneyWeek at its inception in October 2000. He helped Merryn Somerset Webb establish it as Britain’s best-selling financial magazine, contributing to every section of the publication and specialising in macroeconomics and stockmarkets, before going part-time.

His freelance projects have included a 2009 relaunch of The Pharma Letter, where he covered corporate news and political developments in the German pharmaceuticals market for two years, and a multiyear stint as deputy editor of the Barclays account at Redwood, a marketing agency.

Andrew has been editing MoneyWeek since 2018, and continues to specialise in investment and news in German-speaking countries owing to his fluent command of the language.