Brent to stay at $105/bbl till mid 2012: FACTS Global

Praveen Kumar of FACTS Global Energy spoke to CNBC-TV18 about his outlook on crude oil rates post the OPEC meet. 

Below is the edited transcript of the interview. Also watch the accompanying video.

Q: Are you seeing more downside immediately for crude as the dollar strength, the euro weakness, eurozone weakness all start playing out?

A: We think USD 109 per barrel Brent is what it will be for the next two-three months. By second quarter of 2012, we should see it coming down to about USD 105 per barrel. If you take the OPEC meeting out of the picture, I think the benchmark crude prices were quite stable at about USD 109 per barrel and WTI about 10 dollars less. So they seemed pretty stable and there was the potential upside because of what was happening in Iran, there were the debt concerns out of Europe, and also the situation out of Syria and Yemen.

What essentially happened with the OPEC meeting yesterday is that they agreed towards a production ceiling. It was one of the best meetings of OPEC so far, amazing consensus, Saudi pretty much stamped out it's authority once again.

No one agreed to any kind of voluntary cuts, but what is clear is that Libya is going to be ramping up production to about 900,000 barrels per day. So clearly, someone will have to give way. If you take the economic outlook which is looking weak, everybody is concerned about Europe, and what's happened to the OPEC meeting yesterday it seems like we are going to see a USD 105 Brent price towards mid of next year.

Q: You said USD 105 on Brent by the mid of next year. What about the very immediate term? How much of a fluctuation or volatility do you expect to see in Brent if at all?

A: There is more potential to the upside than downside. The reason being because of the situation that