The price of oil has jumped 5% after US President Joe Biden said the US was discussing possible strikes by Israel on Iran’s oil industry.
Asked on a visit if he would support Israel striking Iran’s oil facilities, Biden said: “We’re discussing that”, according to Bloomberg.
If all other things stay the same and SA starts punishing OPEC with production bumps, then yes 50 to 60/bbl is possible in the current balanced market. But these geopolitical risks are unpredictable and military action removing more production than SA could offset with it’s spare capacity would quickly drive it back to 100/bbl.
SA wants OPEC members to believe the 50/bbl threat because OPEC/OPEC+ as a whole have done nothing but overproduce and ignore quotas for years and years, bolstering their own profits while SA tries to take up the slack by cutting. SA is sick and tired of being taken advantage of by their “friends” in the cartel (truely a Leopards Eating Faces moment). Opec members will be more likely to comply with quota demands if there is an imminent market crash.
The US would want members to believe the 100/bbl war premium threat as that will keep reserves high and production on the market, as sellers will want to take immediate advantage of a spot market price spike, which in itself dulls the ultimate effect of said spike and prevents physical shortages that would be severely damaging to the US/OECD countries.
Frankly the entire thing is a giant “¯\_(ツ)_/¯” so make sure your gas tank stays full and we’ll wait and see.