Oil prices are unlikely to return to the pre-crisis level of $60 per barrel until 2022, yet the market has adjusted to the oil price of $30 per barrel, Equatorial Guinea’s minister of mines and hydrocarbons, Gabriel M. Obiang, has said.
Obiang made this known in an interview with Sputnik on Wednesday.
“I don’t see oil going back to the pre-pandemic prices and $60 until 2022.
“There is a lot of cheap oil in the world. It’s going take time for the inventory to go down.
“People expecting oil to go to the $40 and $50, they are being very optimistic.
“I think that it’s more logical to be conservative and comfortable around $30 area, $30 to $39, $40,” Obiang said.
Although the price of $30 per barrel is not very comfortable and the producers would prefer a higher figure, it at least brings some stability and allows the budget to be managed, the minister noted.
The oil prices plummeted earlier this year against the background of the COVID-19 pandemic, the lockdown measures,and the economic slowdown.
In April, the prices of the West Texas Intermediate even went negative.
However, the energy market is starting to show the signs of recovery after the OPEC+ group and some G20 nations decided to slash their oil output in an effort to stabilise the prices.
