Opinions & Interviews

Opinion: Oil market players are in a ‘safety net’ battle

Aleksandr Tishchenko

MINSK, 18 March (BelTA) – The key players on the oil market are in a battle of ‘safety nets’, with each of them declaring enough resources to stay afloat amid the crisis, spokesman for the Belarusian state petrochemical concern Belneftekhim Aleksandr Tishchenko said during the meeting of the Expert Community project “Oil, coronavirus and new reality” at the BelTA press center on 18 March.

He expressed his opinion on the situation on the oil market. “Today we can see a ‘safety net’ battle. Each party says it has enough reserves, resources, and workforce to keep afloat for a long time. No one has given up yet,” the expert said. He believes that the situation will soon take a new turn. “It seems to me that the key to all problems is somewhere round here. In the near future we will see a smart global deal,” said the representative of Belneftekhim.

Aleksandr Tishchenko suggested that major players on the oil market may have been interested in the crisis themselves. Some talks about it were on the sidelines. “In fact, it is a sort of reloading, ‘the war’ will write everything off. What we have on the market today is the result of systematic action. We will see who wins. However, as always, the weak will suffer, while the strong will come out of the game victorious,” he said.

In his turn, analyst with the Belarusian Institute of Strategic Research (BISR), Candidate of Philosophical Sciences Vitaly Demirov, commented on the situation from Belarus' perspective. “It is profitable for us to buy cheap oil, but exactly as long as the prices for oil products are kept high. As a rule, this time lag is quite short. As soon as the prices go down, the margin will not be so significant,” he said. In search of potential oil suppliers key strategic aspects related to the delivery infrastructure through alternative channels are worked out. “Here our decision makers calculate everything carefully,” the analyst said.

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