The bank now foresees the price of Brent crude to average $100 a barrel in the third quarter, down from $130, it said in a note to clients late on Thursday.
“If pursued rigorously, the 60 million-barrel sale over 30 days is a sufficient volume to cause a very substantial drop in the oil price,” said J. P. Morgan analysts led by Lawrence Eagles.
“IEA countries have replaced OPEC as the supplier of the marginal barrel to the market, with significant pricing power conferred to the US by virtue of its large contribution to the release pool.”
The offer of strategic oil inventory “should be seen not only as a stop-gap due to insufficient global supply, but also as an injection of stimulus into the world economy, and result in a significant shift in world oil pricing dynamics in the third quarter,” the bank said.
The new forecast is the same that J. P. Morgan had before the disruption to Libyan supplies, the note said.