$80 oil is sending the market toward demand destruction, Morgan Stanley says

$80 oil is sending the market toward demand destruction, Morgan Stanley says

The current energy market picture is looking good for oil bulls. passed the long-anticipated threshold of $80 per barrel on Tuesday, though it's since slipped back down to trade at $78.47 as of Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. in London. was trading at $74.73 per barrel around the same time.  With winter ahead and a gas crunch in Europe, the demand picture appears promising. But demand destruction could be right around the corner as prices climb higher, some experts are warning. "Oil prices have disconnected from the marginal cost of supply. Instead, they are travelling to the level where demand destruction kicks in, which we estimate at ~$80/bbl." That's what Morgan Stanley wrote in June, and in a note Tuesday, the bank wrote: "This remains our thesis." It added, however, that "the price at which demand destruction kicks in can be fiendishly difficult to estimate. We leave our price forecast unchanged for now but recognise that, on current trends, upside to our bull case scenario to $85/bbl clearly exists." Morgan Stanley foresees global oil supply getting tighter, citing an average of 3 million barrels of crude per day of inventory draws in the last month, compared to 1.9 million barrels