Lynch, Wrong on Oil Prices for Over a Decade, Wrong About Peak Oil

A guy who has been wrong on oil prices longer than most has managed to convince the New York Times to give him some of its precious Op-ed space to issue yet another sure-to-be-wrong prediction. That would be energy consultant Michael Lynch, with his remarkably content-free piece, “‘Peak Oil’ Is a Waste of Energy,” asserting:

Oil remains abundant, and the price will likely come down closer to the historical level of $30 a barrel as new supplies come forward….

Here’s my bet to Lynch. Let’s take the average price of oil from 2010 to 2015. For every $1 a barrel it is below $40, I’ll pay you $200, if you pay me a mere $100 for every $1 a barrel it is above $40.
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Even back then, in the good old days of $17 oil (1995 average nominal price or $24 in 2008 inflation-adjusted dollars), Lynch was predicting flat oil prices for decades:

In previous work, I have shown that past oil market forecasts were biased towards rising prices and declining non-OPEC production. Correcting for the supply pessimism leaves a forecast in which oil markets remain in surplus over the long-term, suggesting that oil prices will remain weak for the indefinite future….

Conclusions: Prices are much more likely to be weak than strong….

… the ongoing technological revolution in the industry, combined with managerial improvements and a more friendly fiscal environment in oil exporting countries, will keep real oil prices flat for the next two decades.

… a flat oil price forecast appears to be much more consistent with historical behavior than the rising price forecasts of DOE and the lEA. A declining price, or flat at a lower level, would hardly be unrealistic.

Not clear how an energy consultant can keep making the same predictions with his track record. Not clear just how wrong your past predictions have to be before the NYT won’t publish your op-ed where you repeat the same exact wrong predictions.

For the record, here is in fact what happened in the decade after Lynch’s prediction of flat real prices:

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