Que those nostalgic for physical contact are reassured, videoconferencing is not about to replace human contact. It was enough for the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to indicate that its meeting, scheduled for Vienna on Sunday, December 4, would finally be held remotely for analysts to immediately interpret the message: if it is by video, c is that nothing will happen.
Such is the life of the markets in these times of low visibility. We watch for the slightest signal to try to predict the future. For example, these thousands of young Chinese who have been defying power in the streets since Sunday, November 27, brandishing high a simple white page, an illustration of the silence imposed on them by authorities obsessed with zero Covid.
Oil invites itself onto this empty sheet. As tension rises in the streets of Beijing, Shanghai or Canton, oil experts want to believe that this will push the government to release the pressure, and thus to restart the economy.
Because today it is largely the Chinese situation that determines the price of black gold. On October 5, the twenty countries united in OPEC +, with Russia, announced a reduction in their production of 2 million barrels per day, equivalent to 2% of world consumption. The price of crude, which had peaked at $120 (116 euros) in June, had plunged to $80.
For the time being, this situation favors Europe
This reduction in production, which greatly irritated the Americans, was not enough to raise prices. They still remain in the $80 area. In question, the Chinese zero Covid policy, which has seriously slowed growth in the Middle Kingdom. In November, for the second month in a row, Chinese manufacturing output fell.
But predicting the future of oil in Chinese protests or vaccination campaigns is as difficult as reading the future in the entrails of a chicken. The geopolitical game that is being played today between Saudi Arabia, a supposed ally of the United States, Russia at war and confined China is highly unstable.
For the moment, this situation benefits Europe, by relieving its energy bill. But, in the long term, the continuation of a Chinese stall threatens its business like that of the world. Each depends on the other, but plays its own score, a martial and cacophonous fanfare marching resolutely in the fog.
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