Oil Prices And Rise And Fall Of Chinese Economy Essay

Several oil-countries have been facing economic and political turbulence as a result of the crash in oil prices, and there is disagreement among OPEC as how to handle the situation. (Krauss) While this is happening, America’s oil production continues to rise, as it inches closer to becoming an energy superpower in production and consumption; and countries that depend on their oil exports face recession.

The consensus from the 1970s and 1980s was that there was an inverse relationship between oil prices and real economic activities. This belief later changed when the oil price crash of the mid-1980s failed to boost economic growth. Researchers then believed that increasing oil prices negatively affect the economy whereas falling oil prices have very little impact and by the 1990s this impact was assumed to be minimal (DePratto, de Resende and Maier 2009). More recently, researchers have found that increases in the oil prices adversely affect the economy whereas the impact of a decline in oil prices on GDP growth is only negligible (Jimenez-Rodriguez and Sanchez

The United States consumes more than 25% of the world’s petroleum products which is a large percentage, considering only 3% of the world’s oil reserves are produced by the United States. Given the demand for petroleum products such as gasoline, understanding why Crude oil prices have skyrocketed in recent years, is not hard. According to the article “Ending America’s Oil Addiction,” the surge in crude oil prices can be reduced in large part to the simple concepts of supply and demand. (Cooper, 2008)

Some emergent countries have put a lot of effort to find new reservoir or find the best way to recover oil from deep seas such as The pre-salt in Brazil. America has high projections for the future with fracking. However, lower prices would put at risk investments in unconventional sources. For example, tar sands, shale oil, deep sea and fracking. Our forecast is that the crude oil price tend to slowly rise until the market balance it self to avoid oversupply especially because of the weakening in the global oil

The U.S. was supposed to be the world’s new swing oil producer, able to nimbly open and close the taps in response to market forces, thanks to its bounty of shale fields.” In the past a barrel of oil has been one hundred dollars, recently it has dropped to thirty dollars. Though some wells can be profitable at low prices it puts a serious strain on the oil industry as explained in this article.

This report will consist of the causes and consequences of the changing price of WTI crude oil and recent trends in the global price of oil. It will also include the effects of the ever-changing price of oil on individuals, business firms, governments and the economy.

Within the last year, oil prices in the United States have dropped significantly. As oil drilling in the United States has reached its highest level in over 30 years, consumers are reaping the benefits. Among these gains are record-low prices at the pump, and cheaper oil to heat homes. However, oil prices did not just drop on their own; multiple factors contributed to the fall. Increased domestic production, declining global demand, and competition from other oil-producing nations had led to rapidly dropping oil prices across the United States.

From 2014, the crude oil price has dropped in a sudden since the global economic downturn, oversupply of crude oil and the appearance of new energy. Global economy fatigued, and thus the demand of crude oil was not strong,

Since June 2014, oil price has fallen by more than 70 percent. Price has recovered few times last year. However, it has sunk this year to levels not seen since 2003 (New York Times, 2016). This drop of price has affected several firms in the industry which we can mention Chesapeake (CHK). In fact, Chesapeake was quoted at more than $20 until late 2014. Today, it is priced below $5. The oil industry is known for its history of booms and busts. It is not the first time that this industry is shaken. In the 1985-86, supply-driven mainly caused the fall of prices. In 2008-2009, price fallen was entirely due to the collapse in demand. However, this reason behind this recent crisis is a little bit special: “price decline appears

Since 2008 many oil companies in the US have been selling 3.5 million barrels more than they did because the oil prices go up and down constantly. In New York the oil price has dropped nearly half in six months. Out of the 12 biggest oil producers in the world most all of them are in the Middle East because they don't have many jobs over there except drilling oil. The US is the biggest buyer of oil. China, Japan and then Western Europe are some other big buyers but they are slowly buying less and less. More oil is pumped than the world needs, that is why the prices of oil are going down. People that drive in vehicles are clicking their about this but oil companies are scratching their heads because they aren't making that much money.” Anytime

As most of the world knows oil prices have been plunging downwards since June 2014, in which a barrel of oil has fallen more than 70 percent from that time, was $90- $100 a barrel, now $40 a barrel and approaching $30 a barrel. This fall basically came about due to rapid increase in global oil production which started to exceed its global demand therefore forcing prices down. “Earnings are down for companies that made record profits in recent years, leading them to decommission more than two-thirds of their rigs and sharply cut investment in exploration and production. Scores of companies have gone bankrupt and an estimated 250,000 oil workers have lost their jobs.” (Krauss, 2016).

Over the longer-term, some of the major trends that affect the price of oil are consumption for business and personal use. For example, Anderson and Boul (2005) note that China's economic growth has resulted in that nation having steadily increasing demand for oil. Much of this comes from growth of the country's consumer class, with automobile sales, and from growth in industrial uses for oil. India, the US, and the world's modern economies are all big users of oil, so the drivers of demand in these nations can have an impact on world markets for oil.

China is the world 's second-largest consumer of oil and the largest net importer of oil in 2014. China holds 24.4 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, the highest in the Asia-Pacific region. China 's total oil and liquids production, the fourth largest in the world, has risen by about 54% over the past two decades and serves only its domestic market. Oil sector has long been under state direct and dominated by national oil companies. The market is highly controlled by the government and oil price barely reveals the real costs of oil.

Despite some contradictory signs, oil prices have been gaining steadily based on reports that U.S. oil inventories have dropped and concerns about production disruptions in both China and Nigeria. A report from cnbc.com speculates that economic weaknesses and contradictory signals about the dollar 's strength won’t significantly impact the trend of rising oil prices. Often linked to inflation and higher interest rates, oil prices have narrow windows for growth where they can exert positive influences on economic conditions but a wider range where economic instabilities occur. This is especially true in the current market where long-term prospects

Crude Oil prices commonly fluctuate. Similar to other commodities in the market, the interactions between supply and demand play significant roles in determining the price of oil. Both oil producers and consumers depend on the prevailing prices to functions precisely as indicators as they work to adjust their supply as well as consumption. Since oil remains the only commodity that is widely-traded, any fluctuation in its prices results in profound effects on national economies. Just to be safe from the implications of these fluctuations, most businesses utilize the future market to protect against the shifts in the oil prices. In this paper, the underlying dynamics of both supply and demand and their consequent impacts on oil prices as well as what the implications mean to the global economy will be addressed.