为什么看空者完全错过了石油需求

• 当今时代，对石油需求峰值预测并没有过时，因为石油需求仍然强劲，尽管奥密克戎引发了新恐慌

• 国际能源署署长比罗表示:需求动态比许多市场观察人士此前预计的要强劲

• 石油需求前景似乎非常乐观，甚至连美国页岩油钻探公司都开始提高产量

据1月17日今日油价报道，2020年，随着疫情爆发，一个又一个国家出台限制措施，许多能源行业观察人士甚至提出，这是石油时代的终结。这些评论人士表示，需求已经见顶。他们说，从现在开始，这将是一个恶性循环，这些预测并不久远。

疫情刚过去一年，经济就重新开放、增长，对许多人来说，消耗更多原油也不足为奇。去年9月，彭博社报道称，全球一些最大经济体石油需求反弹至疫情前水平，甚至在此基础上进一步增长。

如今，疫情已经过去两年，尽管奥密克戎变种引发了新一轮恐慌，但石油需求仍保持强劲。分析人士预计，油价仍将走高，原因是产能有限、新产能投资不足以及需求强劲。

国际能源署(iea)本周对这种需求强劲表示了惊讶。国际能源署似乎已经假定，由于某种原因，石油需求增长将会放缓。这一假设可能与该机构自己的能源预测有关。该预测认为，风能和太阳能发电能力将大幅增长，电动汽车的采用也将大幅增加，而后者将直接影响石油需求。然而，它的假设被证明是错误的。

IEA总干事法提赫•比罗尔(Fatih Birol)本周表示，“需求动态强于许多市场观察人士预期，这主要是由于对奥密克戎担忧的预期有所缓和。”换句话说，国际能源署的这一声明意味着，该机构预计会有更多国家采取封锁措施，以防止病毒传播。然而，这一次不太可能出现更严重的封锁。即使是最富裕的经济体也会发现很难应对另一次经济关闭，所以在应对这次奥密克戎时比以往更加谨慎。

比罗尔表示，“我们看到包括尼日利亚和厄瓜多尔在内的一些主要产油国都出现了严重的供应中断，这呼应了分析师的担忧，即全球石油供需关系中的供应面与需求面一样存在问题。在修复了两条重要管道后，厄瓜多尔已经开始恢复生产。尼日利亚虽然处境艰难，但决心提高石油产量”。

这就是石油基本面的现状，不过，未来可能会有所不同。一方面，投资不足问题正变得越来越严重。欧佩克和IEA都警告称，世界需要发现更多新石油。IEA已将自己重塑为能源转型的拥护者。

出现这种情况的唯一原因可能是，需求并未像所有能源转型倡导者所希望的那样迅速消失。然而，由于过渡压力，大型石油公司正在限制其石油产量，这不仅意味着勘探投资减少导致新发现石油减少，还意味着一些最大石油生产商产量减少。这将使供应负担更多地转移到欧佩克+，他们的闲置产能正在减少，就像欧洲大型石油公司的产量一样。

石油需求前景似乎非常乐观，甚至连美国页岩油公司都开始提高产量，尽管疫情导致他们重新安排了工作重点，将重点放在向股东返还现金，而放弃了产量增长。随着2021年石油出口创下历史新高，如果不抓住这个机会，为这个能源匮乏的世界提供更高比例的石油，那就有点奇怪了。

比罗尔表示，“石油和天然气的消费必须减少，需求也必须减少。没有其他选择，但我想明确表示，需求下降并不意味着明天就会变成零”。

为确保朝着2050年净零目标迈进，尽管一些更激进的环保组织呼吁彻底的转型，但石油和天然气生产不可能在一夜之间停止。即使是比罗尔认为实现净零排放至关重要的《巴黎协定》，要完全履行这一减排也是个难题。当然，除非政府采取一系列禁令和命令，为公民指明正确方向。当然，有些国家和地区已经这么做了。

王佳晶 摘译自 今日油价

原文如下：

Why The Bears Completely Missed The Mark On Oil Demand

Covid era peak oil demand predictions didn’t age well as oil demand is still going strong despite the fresh scare of the Omicron variant

IEA Chief Birol: Demand dynamics are stronger than many of the market observers had thought

The oil demand outlook appears to be so bullish that even U.S. shale drillers have begun boosting their production

In 2020, as the coronavirus locked down country after country, many energy industry observers and even participants floated the argument that this was the end of the oil era. Demand, these commentators said, had peaked. From now on, it will be a downward spiral for it, they said. These predictions did not age well.

Just a year into the pandemic, economies were reopening, growing, and unsurprisingly for many, consuming more crude oil. Last September, Bloomberg reported that some of the world's biggest economies had seen a rebound in oil demand to pre-pandemic levels and even further growth on top of these levels.

Now, two years into the pandemic and with hopes it could be the last one for infection waves, oil demand is still going strong despite the fresh scare of the Omicron variant. Analysts are predicting higher oil prices still, citing limited capacity, insufficient investment in new production, and the strength of demand.

The International Energy Agency this week expressed its surprise with this demand strength. The IEA, it seems, had assumed that for some reason or another, oil demand growth would slow down. Perhaps the assumption had something to do with the agency's own energy forecasts that see massive growth in wind and solar power generation capacity and a strong increase in EV adoption, with the latter directly affecting oil demand. Yet its assumption proved to be quite wrong.

"Demand dynamics are stronger than many of the market observers had thought, mainly due to the milder Omicron expectations," the IEA's chief, Fatih Birol, said this week. Translated, this statement means that the IEA expected more national lockdowns to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus variant. Yet more severe lockdowns were quite unlikely this time around—even the wealthiest economies would find it hard to cope with another shutdown of their economies, so they are approaching this Omicron wave more carefully than previous ones.

"We see some of the key producers including Nigeria and also Ecuador that have serious supply disruptions," Birol also said, echoing concern by analysts that the supply side of the global oil equation is as problematic as the demand side. Ecuador is already restoring production after it repaired two important pipelines，and Nigeria is struggling but determined to boost its oil production.

This is the present state of oil fundamentals. The future may look different. For one thing, the underinvestment problem is becoming increasingly grave. Both OPEC and the IEA—the latter which has rebranded itself as a champion of the energy transition—have warned that the world needs more new oil discoveries.

The only reason for this could be that demand is not dying as fast as hoped by all the champions of the energy transition. Yet Big Oil is curbing its oil output because of transition pressure, and this would mean not just fewer new discoveries because of lower investment in exploration but also lower output from some of the biggest producers out there. This would swing the burden of supply more to OPEC+ whose spare capacity is shrinking, just like European Big Oil's output.

The oil demand outlook appears to be so bullish that even U.S. shale drillers have begun boosting their production despite a pandemic-induced rearrangement of priorities that saw them focus on returning cash to shareholders and forego production growth. With oil exports last year hitting record highs, failing to take advantage of the opportunity to supply a higher portion of the oil an energy-hungry world needs would have been a little odd.

"The consumption of oil and gas has to diminish, demand has to decline," the IEA's Birol said earlier this month in comments on a Canada-focused report. "There is no way out. But I wanted to make clear that a declining demand doesn't mean tomorrow they will be zero."

Indeed, despite calls from some more radical environmentalist groups to do exactly that, oil and gas production cannot be stopped overnight to ensure a clear path towards the 2050 net-zero goals. But even the decline that the IEA's Birol correctly sees as essential for the achievement of the Paris Agreement goals might prove a tough nut to crack. Unless, of course, governments resort to a series of bans and mandates to point their citizens in the right direction. Come to think of it, some are already doing just that.