(Corrects year in paragraph 2 to 2005 from 2008)
SINGAPORE/LONDON (Reuters) - Goldman Sachs'
The team led by Arjun Murti, who made waves in 2005 by calling crude's ascent to $100, also said prices had entered the "bottoming phase" of the current cycle and would hit a trough in the first quarter, while a shift from "demand destruction" to "supply destruction" should ultimately revive oil's rally.
"While global oil demand is very weak and the duration of demand weakness is unclear at this time, we believe oil supply will collapse if prices remain below $40 a barrel for an extended period of time (6-12 months or longer) suggesting we are likely to have entered the bottoming phase of the cycle," the analysts wrote in a report dated December 11.
But in the longer-term it said a return to positive demand growth and shrinking non-OPEC supply should lift prices to $70 a barrel by 2010 and to $105 by 2012.
"We do not believe oil markets are on-track for a decade-plus period of weakness like seen in the 1980s and 1990s," it wrote.
In a separate report from Goldman Sach's commodity research group led by Jeffrey Currie, the bank predicted oil could fall to $30 a barrel, down more than $100 from a peak of $147 in July.
"We expect that an additional 2 million barrels per day (bpd) of OPEC supply cuts will be required in 2009, along with a 600,000 bpd reduction in Non-OPEC production, in order to rebalance the market," it said in the note.
In the same report, the bank said it expected world oil demand to decline by 1.7 million bpd in 2009, driven by a 1 million bpd drop in OECD countries.
(Reporting by Jonathan Leff and Jane Merriman; Editing by Clarence Fernandez/James Jukwey)
