Only Slowing Demand Can Rein In Oil

(Reuters) – Only an unlikely, significant drop in oil demand can achieve what OPEC has failed to do — steer near-record prices back to the $50 a barrel level that consumers and producers say they can live with.

OPEC ministers meeting in Caracas promised on Thursday to keep pumping as much oil as their customers want, but on Friday prices remained stubbornly above $70 a barrel and in striking distance of April’s $75.35 all-time high.

With global economic growth resilient — the International Monetary Fund has forecast 4.9 percent average growth this year — there is no sign of the sort of collapse in demand that followed the oil shocks of the 1970s and 1980s.
Reuters