据10月28日FX Empire报道，影响油价的常见因素包括能源需求疲软、新冠肺炎病例不断增加，再加上北非的石油巨头回归，致使本已敏感的石油市场带来巨大冲击。
在撰写本报告时，布伦特原油期货交易价格略高于40.80美元/桶，下跌逾1.6%值，西德克萨斯中质原油期货交易略高于每桶38.50美元的关键支撑位,下跌逾2%。与此同时，美国墨西哥沿岸正在紧张地准备，以应对随时可能袭击的“Zeta”风暴。
至少目前来看，看涨石油的人重新进入交易，原因是能源需求和供应再平衡日益扭曲，加之美国经济刺激协议迟迟没有达成，且竞争激烈的美国大选将在几天后拉开战幕。
美国石油协会(API)显示，截至10月23日的一周，原油库存增加了457.7万桶，随着美国人进入冬季，汽油库存也在增加，不过，这不足为奇，因为经济活动因寒冷而相对减少。
由于能源专家此前预计石油产量将达到120万桶，因此最近油价走势中出现的严重亏损是普遍存在的。新冠肺炎疫情严重影响了失衡的能源市场，病例数量迅速增加，以致许多经济专家现在都在进一步下调他们对未来经济复苏的预期，这对石油看涨人士来说，可谓雪上加霜。
美国约翰霍普金斯大学公布的数据显示，截至10月28日，全球疫情感染人数已接近4400万，这意味着随着新冠肺炎疫情目前看来已失去控制，可能会加强对人们出行及生产生活的限制。
王佳晶 摘译自 FX Empire
原文如下：
Soft Energy Demand, COVID-19 Virus Hit Hard on Crude Oil Market
Oil bears are most definitely taking control of midweek’s trading sessions in London.
The usual prevailing macros affecting oil prices include soft energy demand, rising COVID-19 caseloads coupled with North Africa’s oil juggernaut’s return to the already sensitive oil markets weighed heavily on black fossil oil.
Brent oil futures at the time of writing this report traded slightly above $40.80/barrel losing more than 1.6% in its value, not forgetting the U.S oil-based traded contract, West Texas Intermediate futures trading slightly above its critical support level of $38.50/ barrel, thereby revealing losses of more than 2% amid the pending hurricane storm Zeta scheduled to hit the U.S Gulf Coast, anytime from now.
It’s fair to say that oil bulls are back on the bench at least for now amid growing distortion in energy demand/supply rebalancing coupled with the lingering U.S. stimulus deal and the highly contested U.S election coming to play in some days’ time.
Crude oil bears are presently having a party of a lifetime on reports coming from the American Petroleum Institute (API) showed a rise of 4.577 million barrels for the week that ended on October 23, and not surprisingly, it also showed gasoline inventories ticking up as Americans head to the winter months, at a time when economic activities are relatively lower due to the cold.
Heavy losses seen in recent price action are prevailing on the bias that energy experts were expecting a build of 1.2 million barrels.
Compounding the oil bulls’ woes remains the usual suspect, COVID-19 pandemic weighing heavily on the distorted energy market, with caseloads rising rapidly at the speed of sound, to an extent that many economic experts are now downgrading their economic recovery expectations further into the future.
Johns Hopkins University data printed the number of individuals affected with the deadly virus is now nearing 44 million globally as of October 28, meaning restriction of human mobility might be intensified, as COVID-19 virus now looks out of control.