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Irina Slav

Irina Slav

Irina is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing on the oil and gas industry.

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Decade Of Chaos Could Send Oil To $130 Per Barrel

From $35 per barrel to $130 per barrel—this is the range for oil prices in the next few years that we could see, according to a commodity trading group. And it will all depend on what peaks first: demand or investment in new production. "You could see spikes to even higher than $100 a barrel, even $130, and you could also see it go down to $35 a barrel for periods of time going forward," William Reed II, chief executive of Castleton Commodities International, said at the FT Global Commodities Summit this week, as quoted by Reuters. "The question is what happens first. Peak demand or peak investment?"

This is a fascinating question that will likely remain open for quite some time; it seems as if forecasts are even more unreliable than usual in the post-pandemic world. For instance, last year, energy authorities and the industry itself predicted oil demand growth was over thanks to the pandemic that encouraged a doubling down on an energy shift away from fossil fuels. Now, these same forecasters, including the International Energy Agency and BP, are talking about growing oil demand.

One thing that can hardly be disputed is that lower spending on exploration would inevitably lead to lower production. This is what we have seen: the pandemic forced virtually everyone in the oil industry to slash their spending plans. This is what normally happens during the trough phase of an industry cycle.

Related: Oil Prices Fall As The Fed Changes Its Tune What doesn't normally happen in a usual cycle is long-term planning for smaller output. Yet this is the response of Big Oil to the push to go green. Most supermajors are planning changes that would effectively reduce their production of oil and gas. In Shell's case, it has been literally ordered by a Dutch court to shrink its production of oil and gas.

So, it's pretty clear that supply is tightening, and oil prices are reflecting this. In fact, supply has lately shrunk so much that even the International Energy Agency, which earlier this year called for a suspension of all new oil and gas exploration, is now calling for more supply. This is the perfect illustration of how difficult it has become to predict where oil prices would go even in the short term, let alone a period of several years.

According to Castleton's Reed, the recovery in oil prices was only to be expected. In that, he is the latest in the growing choir of voices predicting higher prices, even north of $100 per barrel, before too long. Yet, according to some, they might only stay there for a short while and then never reach the same levels.

Earlier this month, a Boston Consulting Group report titled The Last Oil Price Boom May Be in Sight suggested that what we are now witnessing may be not just the last oil price rally but the shortest one, too. The consultancy noted the fast rally in prices since the start of this year as an indication of the "compressed time span" of the boom.

"This quick rise will put pressure on suppliers, which will expand capex to meet rising demand, and end users, which will leverage efficiency as well as increasingly available new technologies to mitigate—or even avoid altogether—the price of oil and its attendant emissions," Boston Consulting Group's report authors wrote.

Related: Is China Finally Moving Away From Coal?

Things in oil prices are indeed moving faster than usual, but if we are being fair, the past year has been anything but usual. The biggest consequence of the pandemic was a boom in uncertainty, which has made forecasting anything much more difficult than before. As noted above, oil demand forecasts are a good example of this heightened uncertainty. There are also challenges that the energy transition push is facing that could derail it or at the very least postpone it. This contributes to the uncertain future of oil prices and the argument for supervolatility.

Solar panel prices are on the rise, for instance. The reason is supply chain disruptions caused by the pandemic. There is also emerging environmentalist opposition to utility-scale solar farms. Issues such s copper supply for windmills and EVs, and battery minerals are also dimming the outlook for the energy transition and implicitly work in favor of oil and gas.

So, it is easy to see how Brent crude could hit $100 per barrel before this year's end if demand continues recovering at the current rate. Even the additional OPEC+ supply coming to markets next month may not be enough to reverse the trend.

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It is a little harder to see oil falling to $35 a barrel unless a lot more supply is added. This would be a perfectly realistic scenario in any other cycle. Now, producers both in OPEC and outside it are wary of the energy transition and its expected effect on their business, and are not in a rush to boost production. The question of what will come first, peak demand or peak investment, remains open.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

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  • ches brent on June 22 2021 said:
    So oil might go between $35 to $130 in the next 10 years.

    Very helpful, thankyou!
  • Mamdouh Salameh on June 22 2021 said:
    Common sense dictates that crude oil prices are now on an upward trajectory and will remain so for a number of years with Brent crude easily rising far higher than $100 a barrel.

    The obvious explanation for which we don’t need the genius of Albert Einstein is rising world population, growing global economy and lack of an alternative to oil.

    World population is projected to rise from 7.9 billion currently to 9.7 billion by 2050 while the global economy is also projected to grow from $91 trillion today to $267 trillion by 2050. That is why there could never ever be a peak oil demand. Also there could never be a post-oil era throughout the 21st century and far beyond because it is very doubtful that an alternative as versatile and practicable as oil could totally replace oil in the next 100 years and beyond.

    In view of the above, Brent crude could be expected to surge even above $130. The global economy can easily absorb $130 oil. If it can’t it will make it clear in no uncertain terms.

    I have done research about a fair price for Brent crude and came up with a range of $100-$130 a barrel. Such a price stimulates the global economy through incentivizing the three big chunks that make up the global economy, namely the global oil industry, global investments and the economies of the oil-producing countries of the world.

    Furthermore, the argument that a large rise in oil prices will automatically stimulate supplies is no longer as valid as it used to be in the past because global supply is becoming as elastic vis-a-vis changes in oil prices as global demand. There are two reasons for that. The first is that the overwhelming volumes of any new supplies will have to come from the Arab Gulf producers and Russia and they may have reasons to withhold most of the supplies to achieve the prices they want. The second reason is that the international oil companies (IOCs) have enough reserves to last 8-10 years only and they are finding it extremely difficult to replace the ones they use because of resurgent resource nationalism.

    On top of all the above, there are already indications that oil could be headed to a new supercycle. Since early December crude oil prices have staged an impressive comeback. Brent crude has shot up from under $40 in early December to $74.40 today, an 86% surge in a 7-month non-stop period.

    Dr Mamdouh G Salameh
    International Oil Economist
    Visiting Professor of Energy Economics at ESCP Europe Business School, London
  • DoRight Deikins on June 22 2021 said:
    Good article, Irina.
    I have no doubt that prices (and inflation) are on the rise (to put it mildly). Clearly, so much of our economies runs on petroleum - including the &#039;green revolution&#039;. Yet what is my purpose here? Is it to have more stuff? How do I reduce petroleum use or energy use? By reducing demand, not by reducing supply.
    This world in which we live and our desires will pass on. The ultimate question is what will are legacy be?
  • DoRight Deikins on June 22 2021 said:
    Thank you for a good article, Irina. I agree that $130 is easily within the realm of possibilities.

    Dr Salameh, you stated that the world economy can easily absorb $130 oil.

    Two questions,

    1. What are you projecting this price for oil would do to inflation (i.e. what inflation would you target for a price of $130)?

    2. While the OECD countries would probably not have a problem with this price, what will it do to the economies of the poorer countries of the world, especially those without petroleum resources.

    Thank you.
  • Alan Dr on June 22 2021 said:
    In the short term Oil consumption will continue to grow for transportation as more ICE cars are added to the total cars in the world. Once more electric cars are added to our world total then ICE cars we can not expect much growth from the transportation sectors.

    In the long term population growth and growing GDP of nations are directly influencing the growth in demand for oil. But apart from ‘peak oil’ there is also the concept of world ‘peak population’.

    Things get hilarious when oil market researchers take the population growth (and peak) numbers from the climate doom preachers (UN/IPCC the ones that talk about the population bomb and growth into the next century). This is then preferred, instead of a multitude of independent research that will see the world population peak in the 2060’s, in order to paint a more bright future for world oil consumption.

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