In the last working days of this week, the sluggish decline in world oil prices turned into a sharp collapse. Thus, at the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the price of Brent crude for the first time since November last year fell below $ 47 per barrel. Futures for oil supply in July 2017. Dropped to $ 46.91 per barrel. In the subsequent, the prices managed to be corrected a little, but they could not go back for a mark of $ 50 per barrel.

The reason for the collapse was the statement by Russian President's Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov that Russia still did not make a decision whether to extend or not the deal with OPEC, in which world production was reduced by 1.8 million barrels a day in order to balance the market And withdraw it from the protracted peak.

Followed by the statement of the head of the Ministry of Energy of Russia Alexander Novak that Russia "tends to extend the agreement," did not stop the collapse of quotations.

However, the collapsed market statement Peskov should be regarded as an excuse rather than as a cause of the collapse. Judging by the fact that prices fell against the backdrop of quite large volumes of oil sales, a significant amount of black gold was thrown at the market at once.

And it is this moment that may indicate that the retention of the value of the barrel at its current levels comes to an end, and ahead looms a new round of decline, with all the ensuing consequences.

Such an abrupt collapse of prices, most likely, means that the "physical" (actually existing) reserves, which are stored in huge quantities directly in tankers.

The idea of ??storing oil in holds of ships intended not for warehousing, but for transporting black gold appeared several years ago, when the demand for black gold declined, and its world reserves continued to grow. Terrestrial storage facilities simply could not accommodate such a large number of them, and in order not to "jam" wells, oil producers began to charter tankers as floating tanks.

This method of storage is by no means cheap, and all the hopes of the owners of these reserves were placed on the expectation of an increase in world prices after the agreement of the OPEC countries and the independent producers (OPEC +) that joined them to cut production.

The massive release of "tanker" oil to the market can mean only one thing: its owners no longer cherish the hope of being able to sell their goods in the future at a higher price, and renting "floating storage" becomes for them ruinous. Judging by the fact that everything happened after Peskov's statement, which indirectly indicates that there may not be a new OPEC + agreement, such a version seems very similar to the truth.

A rather interesting version of what was happening was expressed by Morgan Stanley analysts who believe that this is a big game of OPEC members and those who joined them. Judging by the latest report of Morgan Stanley experts, OPEC entered into a hybrid war for the global oil market. In the course of this struggle, they formally comply with their obligations to reduce production, but at the same time they continue to fill the market with oil produced by them within the new quotas, supplementing the reduced supplies with "tanker reserves". As a result, OPEC oil supplies do not decrease in proportion to the reduction in production. Thus, OPEC + is trying to retain the market, not allowing it to move under the control of American oil shale companies.

Will this all lead to a new round of decline in oil prices, and as a result - the weakening of the Russian ruble?.

Until recently, it was believed that the OPEC + agreement will be extended and this will be the key to growth, or at least the preservation of current prices. Today, there is no such certainty.

"What is happening today is not a fall yet, it is a short-term technical sale," the analyst of the Golden Mint House Dmitry Golubovsky explained to "Morning". - The fall should be in the second half of the year ".

According to the expert, OPEC + will not remove overproduction, because US companies stupidly increase production. "Previously, I thought that oil would grow up under OPEC +, but they sweated," Golubovsky added.. - Newscasts were given to the fact that they might not agree. So in the end, what happened ".

What is happening today on the oil market can not but affect the Russian ruble. An axiom that suggests that the fall / increase in the cost of a barrel leads to a fall / rise in the ruble's exchange rate, so far no one has canceled. Consequently, soon he may well follow oil.

"As for the ruble, it is still, even after the last fall, extremely expensive in relation to oil," said Golubovsky. - If I'm right, that soon the correction of the broad market will follow, and the ruble should be disposed of ".