Goldman ups oil price forecast as global supply flips to deficit

London

THE global oil market has flipped to a deficit sooner than Goldman Sachs Group Inc had expected.

A decline in production driven by unexpected supply disruptions as well as sustained demand have led to a "sudden halt" to the market surplus, Goldman analysts including Damien Courvalin and Jeffrey Currie wrote in a report dated May 15. That has prompted the bank to raise its US crude price forecast to US$50 a barrel for the second half of 2016 from a US$45 estimate in March.