Oil to rally further as OPEC and Venezuela cause shortage – Vitol

Bloomberg reports the recent comments delivered by Russell Hardy, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the world’s largest energy trader, Vitol Group, in an interview over the weekend.

Key Quotes:

Oil prices are set to rally further as OPEC output cuts and American sanctions on Iran and Venezuela cause a "shortage" of the low-quality heavy crudes refiners rely on.

"From here there’s probably the potential to be a little bit higher."

"Oil supply is going to be pretty tight until the third quarter."

"You have a squeeze on heavy supply probably for the next six months."

"The OPEC decision has meant there’s less available, the Iranian situation has meant there’s less available, and the Venezuelan situation now is adding to that."

"There could be a question mark over market direction by the fourth quarter of this year."

"There’s a certain amount of pent-up production that’s awaiting logistics to allow it to be exported. As the pipelines come on, some of the drilled but uncompleted wells will start to hit. We should have a surge in production related to the pipelines."