$100-plus oil will be here for years as China motors ahead

The 2016 future price has just raced above $140 a barrel, spiking $20 in less than a fortnight. The futures market is driven by smart people who think of little else but the supply and demand of crude in the months and years to come. And last week they imposed the biggest futures price rise in living memory.

The crude market is now in a rare state known as “contango” – with future prices above those prevailing today. So, the world’s top oil experts think that, in 2016, the gap between oil supply and demand will be even greater than now.

And that’s hardly surprising. China has 1.3bn people, four times more than America. At the moment, each American uses 10 times more oil than each Chinese – which is why, for now, the US remains the world’s biggest crude consumer.

Telegraph