LONDON (Reuters) - Oil, which hit a record above $135 in May, will stay strong and should provide an investment opportunity for the foreseeable future, a managing director at Barclays Capital (BARC.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) said on Thursday.
The bank, which has taken a consistently bullish view on commodities in general and especially on oil, has forecast an average U.S. crude price of $116.90 for this year.
"My view is we will see $150 this year," Benoit de Vitry told the Reuters Global Energy Summit, although he added that did not mean the price would stay at that level.
He disputed that this year's searing rally was speculative, saying commodities markets were rooted in physical assets and the current rally was supported by expectations supply will struggle to meet demand.
"At the end of the day, it translates into physical," he said.
Part of the reason for this year's lurch higher, however, was that the psychological $100 a barrel threshold was breached at the start of January.
"When we broke $50, we went to $80. When you broke through $100, there's no difference. ... $100 was a psychological barrier," he said.
A sustained rally since around 2002 has been accompanied by a wave of investment class money, which tends to lock into markets, although it has become more dynamic, taking short positions, as well as long, de Vitry said.
GRADUAL IMPACT
He argued the impact of investment class money was gradual.
"The price went up not because of more inflow into it," he said.
Industry figures on the amount of investment in commodities are elusive and vary between around $200 billion to around $250 billion for the amounts in indexes that bring together a range of raw materials.
The numbers compare with around $13 billion in 2003, but the growth is explained by the rise in the value of commodity prices and is not just driven by new investment, de Vitry noted.
While long-term investors are not swayed by short-term price moves, price dips could be reasons for so-called fast money to move in.
Another opportunity is the back end of the oil curve, where prices rose well above the front end to more than $145 at the end of May and have since fallen to just above $125 for December 2016, compared with around $122 for the promptest contract on Thursday. Continued...
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