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http://blogs.wsj.com/canadarealtime/2015/01/05/oils-doomsayer-says-doom-again/

January 5, 2015, 1:57 PM ET

Oil’s Doomsayer Says Doom … Again
By Christian Berthelesen

Citigroup Inc.’s Ed Morse was the analyst who prominently called $75-a-barrel global oil prices last March, back when it was trading above $100 a barrel and prevailing wisdom had prices rising rather than falling. He was right, of course – Brent crude plummeted through that threshold in late November and has continued to fall, to $53 and change Monday.

As such, oil-market watchers tend to listen to what he has to say. And what is his outlook for the foreseeable future? Look out below.

Mr. Morse and his team at Citigroup have cut their estimate for global oil prices to average $63 a barrel in 2015, down from $80, and for the U.S. benchmark to average $55 a barrel this year (just FYI, Nymex prices briefly traded below $50 a barrel earlier Monday). They see a confluence of factors — including continued surging U.S. production, Saudi resistance to cutting output, and a weakening global economy — conspiring to push prices even lower before recovering somewhat in the second half of 2015 and into next year.

In a new research note titled “Oil and Trouble Ahead in 2015” distributed Monday, Mr. Morse said that 2014’s price drop was supply driven, and that the oversupply situation will continue to grow in the first half of the year as the U.S. shale production boom continues and Saudi Arabia prices aggressively to regain U.S. import market share. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of barrels of Canadian crude will be making their way down to the U.S. Gulf Coast, the Middle East is ramping up new refining capacity, and Iraqi-Kurdish exports are expected to continue growing.

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