* Production freeze might not rebalance market -Goldman
* Azerbaijan Q1 oil output falls 1.6 pct year on year
* BMO Capital Markets lowers 2016 Brent forecast to $41
* Speculators cut net long Brent positions -ICE data
* Global oil demand to grow 1.4 pct in 2016-20 -Bernstein
(Adds ICE data, updates prices)
By Karolin Schaps
LONDON, April 11 (Reuters) - Oil prices slipped on Monday
after banks dampened hopes that the meeting of producers in Doha
next Sunday, aimed at freezing current output levels, would
improve the demand-supply balance.
Brent crude futures LCOc1 , the global benchmark, fell by
10 cents to $41.84 a barrel by 1208 GMT, retreating from last
week's rally to a three-week high reached on Friday after a drop
in the rig count of U.S. drillers to its lowest since November
2009.
U.S. WTI crude CLc1 also eased on Monday, falling to
$39.50 a barrel, down 22 cents from the previous session.
"Prices will move back and forth this week on expectations
for Doha. This morning it seems that speculation is being scaled
back again," Commerzbank (DE:CBKG) senior oil analyst Carsten Fritsch
said.
Analysts at Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS), who expect oil prices to average
$35 a barrel in the second quarter, cautioned that the outcome
of the meeting in Qatar could prove bearish for the market.
A production freeze at recent levels would not accelerate a
rebalancing of the market, the analysts said, citing Russian and
non-Iranian OPEC output that has remained close to the bank's
2016 average annual forecast of 40.5 million bpd.
Azerbaijan, the energy minister of which will attend the
Doha meeting, said on Monday that its output had dropped by 1.6
percent in the first quarter compared with a year earlier to
10.496 million tonnes.
Barclays (LON:BARC), meanwhile, gave warning that the Doha meeting
could have limited impact because some producers are unlikely to
take part in an output freeze.
Bearish sentiment was further reflected in price
expectations. BMO Capital Markets lowered its 2016 Brent and WTI
price forecasts to $41 and $38 a barrel respectively, down from
the $45 and $41.50.
Many oil market speculators agreed with a more bearish
outlook as data from the InterContinentalExchange (ICE) showed
that net long positions on Brent had been cut to 355,225
contracts in the week ending April 5.
However, analsts are forecasting firmer demnd for oil over
the longer term.
Researchers at Bernstein expect global oil demand to
increase at a mean annual rate of 1.4 percent between 2016 and
2020, compared with annual growth of 1.1 percent over the past
decade.
"We expect oil markets to rebalance by the end of 2016. This
will allow prices to recover towards the marginal cost of $60
per barrel," Bernstein said, adding that global demand reach
101.1 million bpd by 2020, from the current 94.6 million bpd.
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Graphic on U.S. rig counts http://graphics.thomsonreuters.com/15/rigcount/index.html
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