The next move for oil prices could fall under a “good,” “bad,” or “ugly” scenario, according to BofA strategists. The three different paths are linked to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine and energy supply movements.
“If you’re starting to lose some of those commodity flows, and you don’t necessarily reroute them to other countries, it could become quite difficult for commodity markets,” Michael Widmer, senior metals strategist at Bank of America Global Research, told Yahoo Finance Live.
“If you did lose some of the energy supply from Eastern Europe it could become very tricky,” he added.
In an “ugly” case scenario, oil prices like Brent (BZ=F) crude rises to $130 a barrel. In a “good” case, “the conflict is resolved in short order and commodity flows roughly revert back to six months ago, with Brent at $95/bbl,” wrote Widmer and fellow analyst Francisco Blanch.
“In our baseline (bad scenario), Russian commodity flows are fundamentally rerouted away from Europe and the U.S. but no major structural deficits emerge, leading to an average Brent crude oil price in 2022 of $110/bbl and an average European TTF natural gas price of €105/MWh,” says the note.
On the commodities side, Widmer also says, “Any disruption in nickel or palladium supplies could have a material negative impact on the car industry and potentially slow down the energy transition too.”
Palladium futures (PA=F) were volatile on Tuesday after reaching all-time highs early last week. Russia is the biggest exporter of the precious metal used buy auto manufacturers for catalytic converters.
On Tuesday, electric vehicle giant Tesla (TSLA) raised the prices of its cars. The hike came after a recent tweet from CEO Elon Musk warning about inflationary pressures in raw materials and logistics for Tesla and SpaceX.
