Don’t believe oil bump, $18 still coming

With depressed oil prices poised for a second-straight weekly advance, closely followed analyst John Kilduff said Friday the bounce from 12-year lows won’t last. West Texas Intermediate crude was steady early Friday, after gaining nearly 3 percent Thursday on hopes of a deal among OPEC countries and Russia to cut production to tackle the growing […]

Is Saudi Arabia finally winning the global oil war?

Sometimes in global financial markets, change can be brutal as the market adjusts to a completely new reality. The second half of 2014 was one of these periods and witnessed the beginning of what would become one of the largest declines in global oil prices on record. For many years, markets had focused on ‘peak […]

Economics Might Be Very Wrong About Growth

Has the world entered a period in which economies simply won’t grow at the rate they once did? Radical as the thought may seem, it might not be radical enough. A few years ago, the economist Larry Summers stirred much debate when he suggested that the anemic growth of recent years might not be just […]

Macro Outlook for 2016

A full-spectrum romp through the macroeconomic context: Stock markets; oil and gas prices; coal’s collapse; the difficult LNG export market; what commodities are telling us about the health of the global economy; trends in oil and electricity demand and electric vehicles; currency valuations and trends; the outlook for renewables; and much more! Geek rating: 6 […]

Who’s afraid of cheap oil?

ALONG with bank runs and market crashes, oil shocks have rare power to set monsters loose. Starting with the Arab oil embargo of 1973, people have learnt that sudden surges in the price of oil cause economic havoc. Conversely, when the price slumps because of a glut, as in 1986, it has done the world […]

What Oil Can Tell Us About The Future?

Our civilization is growing and the pace of this growth is becoming faster every day. The population of Earth is over 7.3 bn and this enormous bunch of humans need a lot of power to drive the household appliances, cars and to light bigger and bigger cities. The 20th century has been ruled by one […]

Oil Price Will Increase in Next ‘Few Months’

Oil prices will only stay at current levels for the next few months, according to Stuart Amor, the ex-head of oil and gas research at financial advisory firm RFC Ambrian. Amor, who made the statement in a presentation at the Finding African Oil event in London Monday, which was attended by Rigzone, said that around […]

The Myth of US Self-sufficiency in Crude Oil

Google for “US energy independence” and you will get 134k results, “US self sufficiency” yields 10k results. Here are some examples of what the media reports: In Aljazeera’s Inside Story, 10/1/2016, titled “How much support will Saudi Arabia win against Iran?” the delicate relationship between the US, Saudi Arabia and Iran is discussed with 3 […]

OECD’s perspective on the global economy

“The situation is worse than it was in 2007. Our macroeconomic ammunition to fight downturns is essentially all used up. Debts have continued to build up over the last eight years and they have reached such levels in every part of the world that they have become a potent cause for mischief. It will become […]

Saudi Arabia presents plan to move beyond oil

Saudi Arabia outlined ambitious plans on Monday to move into industries ranging from information technology to health care and tourism, as it sought to convince international investors it can cope with an era of cheap oil. A meeting and presentation at a luxury Riyadh hotel was held against a backdrop of low oil prices pressuring […]

Kunstler: The Agonies of Sensible People

Much as many people-who-ought-to-know-better have been enjoying the disruptive antics of Donald Trump, surely other cohorts and coteries have endured dark nights of the soul as they witness the 2016 election spin into a perfect storm of rebellion, corruption, and idiocy. Imagine the scenes in Michael Bloomberg’s drawing room the past eight months, the agonies […]

Volatility, oil and stock markets

“Down” is such a downer word. That’s why when prices fall for practically anything Wall Street wants to sell you, Wall Streeters talk about volatility instead. Volatility allows for the possibility that prices will recover soon and go to new highs. Any setback is just temporary. The market turbulence, it seems, is merely designed by […]

Oil enters irrational territory

World oil markets quietly breached an important barrier as they crashed nearly 30 percent to below $30 a barrel in the opening weeks of 2016, crossing the fuzzy line separating a rational response to fundamentals from an irrational fear where the only way forward is down, down, down. Animal spirits have taken over the futures […]

We ran out of oil in 2011. You didn’t know that?

A prediction from 1976: “We need to have, uh, a realization that we’ve got about 35 years worth of oil left in the whole world. We’re gonna run out of oil.” That scientific certainty was from candidate Jimmy Carter during the 1976 Presidential Debate. Check it out for yourself: Here is some math: 1976 – […]

“Death Knell” For Peak Oil? Not So Fast!

It is easy to understand why some folks, including the nattering nabobs of the mainstream media, might somehow mistake the current glut of oil for evidence that Peak Oil is fiction or never existed at all. This would be a tragic error but as we see in today’s Denver Post editorial (‘The Death Knell for […]

Demand is dying as technology improves

The tumble in the oil price from the $US110 a barrel it was trading at until 18 months ago down to $US30 and heading lower this week demolishes the “peak oil hypothesis” — the theory that the exploitation of the earth’s finite oil reserves is approaching the maximum output that is physically possible beyond which […]

Dancing on the grave of “peak oil” – will it stay buried?

In my November 2007 column, Peak Oil Again?, when oil prices had reached $100 per barrel, I concluded, “Some day peak oil production will be reached, but most oil reserve estimates suggest that there are good reasons to doubt that that day is now at hand.” And that was before fracking and horizontal drilling had […]

Saudis Protect Oil Market Share By Spending Petrodollars In China

The battle to retain and even increase global oil market share is intensifying. Both Saudi Arabia and Russia, the world’s top two crude oil producers, continue to ramp up production amid an unprecedented supply glut and associated price collapse for crude that is rocking the world financial system. This week several analysts once again downgraded […]

8-Dollar Cauliflower Shows the Pain of Falling Oil Prices

Steamed, sautéed or stir-fried, cauliflower is standard fare on many dinner tables. In Canada, it is a luxury. A head of cauliflower there now goes for around 8 Canadian dollars, a tripling in price, the strange foodie fallout from the low price of oil and other commodities. The recipe for high-priced cauliflower starts with the […]

Lithium Is Becoming the ‘New Gasoline’

The Economist: An Increasingly Precious Metal Lithium accounts for only about 5% of the materials in some car batteries, and for less than 10% of their cost. Worldwide sales of lithium salts are only about $1 billion a year. But the element is a vital component of batteries that power everything from cars to smartphones, […]

Why oil under $30 per barrel is a major problem

A person often reads that low oil prices–for example, $30 per barrel oil prices–will stimulate the economy, and the economy will soon bounce back. What is wrong with this story? A lot of things, as I see it: Oil producers can’t really produce oil for $30 per barrel A few countries can get oil out […]

Could this be humanity’s LAST century?

It won’t be war, politics or poverty that eventually wipes out humanity. According to Seth Shostak, our end will come about as a result of designer babies and artificial intelligence. The outspoken director of the Search for extraterrestrial intelligence (Seti) Institute believes developments in these areas will lead to new ‘alien’ species. +3 It won’t […]

The Coming Oil Rebound

How low can oil prices go? When pundits start competing to predict where the barrel will hit bottom, you know that a rebound is inevitable. It’s the inverse of what happens before a high-price bubble bursts. Only a few years ago forecasters were suggesting that oil might hit $300 a barrel. The unpleasant reality is […]

IEA Sees World Drowning in Oil

Iran could restore 600,000 barrels a day of output by mid-year Agency cuts 2016 global demand outlook, raises non-OPEC supply Global oil markets could “drown in oversupply,” sending prices even lower as demand growth slows and Iran revives exports with the end of sanctions, according to the International Energy Agency. The IEA trimmed 2016 estimates […]

Oil Sold for -$0.50 per Barrel. A Negative Price!

The oil markets are on edge with oil sinking into the $20s per barrel. And last week we reported on one place where oil is already trading in the single-digits. Canada’s bitumen is selling for just $8 per barrel. But even that rock bottom price is higher than what one oil seller earned for a […]

Saudi Oil Minister Crude Prices Will Rise

Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said crude prices will rise and foresees that market forces and cooperation among producing nations will lead in time to renewed stability. “I am optimistic about the future, the return of stability to the global oil markets, the improvement of prices and the cooperation among the major producing countries,” al-Naimi […]

The Deflation Monster Has Arrived

As we’ve been warning for quite a while (too long for my taste): the world’s grand experiment with debt has come to an end. And it’s now unraveling. Just in the two weeks since the start of 2016, the US equity markets are down almost 10%. Their worst start to the year in history. Many […]

Supply? Demand? Emotion? The Future Of Crude Oil Futures Volatility

Many crude oil market observers point to current global inventory levels to explain today’s low prices.  The recent price decline is also attributed to concern about possible future decline in Chinese demand growth. The problem with both of these explanations is that no one can describe with sufficient certainty the causal relationship between current crude […]

Yergin: Pressure on Oil Downward

IHS Vice Chairman Daniel Yergin discuss his outlook for the price and production of oil. He speaks on “Bloomberg Markets.” bloomberg

The Odd Consequences of the Oil Price Crash

In the middle of 2014, oil traded for more than $100 a barrel. Today, it is below $35. Traditionally, there would be numerous positives from low oil prices, but many of these have yet to materialize or may no longer be relevant at all. The U.S. shale boom, one of the great American growth stories, […]

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