The oil market should be mostly balanced this year, although “policy risk” will be a much larger driver for oil prices than the underlying fundamentals, according to a new report from Standard Chartered. Brent crude started the year off repairing the damage from the epic meltdown in the fourth quarter, but over the last few weeks oil prices have rebounded. Standard Chartered sees Brent rising much farther, averaging as high as $74 per barrel this year, before averaging as high as $83 per barrel in 2020. However, this forecast hinges on a variety of key policy decisions. First, OPEC+ must keep its production cuts in place, and indeed the group needs to cap output at January levels. If they can manage that, then global crude inventories would only rise by a minor 0.1 million barrels per day (mb/d), according to Standard Chartered. That would set the stage for a […]