Don’t worry about oil until it hits $160

Another year, another gathering of top energy industry movers and shakers. But as the 30th annual CERA Week conference unfolds in Houston this week, some of the focus will be on the events taking place on the other side of the globe.

The 30th annual CERAWeek, put on by Cambridge, Mass.-based braintrust IHS CERA, opened Monday evening with a dinner featuring keynotes from Kenneth Rogoff, a Harvard University professor, and Jing Ulrich, managing director and chairman of China equities and commodities for J.P. Morgan.

While introducing the speakers, IHS CERA chairman Daniel Yergin summed up what is likely to become the dominant theme threading through this year’s conference: the political turmoil and uncertainty in oil producing countries and the effect on oil prices, and possibly, the global economic recovery.

“If we held (the conference) six or seven weeks ago, this would be about the strength of the recovery; now it’s about the uncertainty of the recovery,” he said.

Still, Kenneth Rogoff, the Thomas D. Cabot professor of public policy at Harvard, said that the global recovery is resilient and higher oil prices won’t drag down the recovery, unless it reaches $160 to $180 per barrel.

Jing Ulrich spoke on China’s economic impact on the rest of the globe, another topic of interest in the West. Ulrich said the economic forecast for China in 2011 would be positive, with the country enjoying 9 percent growth.

Houston Business Journal