Hedge fund boss Andurand sees $140/b Brent by year-end

Quantum Commodity Intelligence – High-profile oil hedge-fund manager Pierre Andurand has made one of his most bullish predictions to date – calling Brent at $140/b by year end – despite the sharp drop in crude prices this month since the onset of the banking crisis.

Andurand also told FT Commodities Global Summit on Tuesday that demand for oil would not peak until the turn of the decade, reaching 110 million barrels, or up around 8 million barrels from 2023 levels.

May23 Brent futures slumped from around $87/b earlier in the month to a low of almost $70/b on Monday, but have since recovered to mid-$70s/b - which means that for Andurand's outlook to come true prices would need to double from this week's low.

Andurand told the FT Summit that oil prices have been strained by the banking crisis, causing a liquidation of positions and a speculative selloff.

This not the first time the hedge-fund boss has made bullish predictions, and he has been broadly been sanguine about a strong demand-led recovery in the post-pandemic world.

In March last year, Andurand said oil markets could potentially hit $200/b as historically tight markets struggle to ramp up production and replace lost supply from Russia, but has since said Russia had "lost the energy war".

French-national Andurand worked as an energy derivatives trader in Singapore for Bank of America and Vitol in the 2000s, before joining the hedge fund world in 2007.

Sources said Andurand made his first fortune in the hedge-fund world with BlueGold Capital, which he founded with Vitol colleague Dennis Crema, by shorting the market ahead of credit crunch and subsequent oil price collapse of 2008. 

This week, fellow 2023 oil bull Goldman Sachs cut its 12-month Brent forecast by 6% to $94/b, noting the flood of investors exiting crude futures meant the price recovery towards $100/b would take longer than it previously expected.