The Narrative Of Falling Oil Prices

The consumption of the oil cause changes in the supply and demand. The United States produces 11 million barrels of oil every day. We are one of the biggest countries to have a big influence on the production and prices of the oil. The basic supply and demand theory explains that the if a product is produced more, the cheaper it should sell. If a country were to double the output of oil day, prices would fall and the Production is high, but the distribution of oil isn’t keeping up with the market. The United States builds an average of one oil refinery per 10 years. This is a net loss due to the fact construction has slowed down since 1970s. Since 1970s, the United States has 8 less oil refineries today. The reason why we are not oversupplied with cheap oil is because of the other countries’ higher net margin and the only operate at 62% of their capacity. Excess capacity is only there to meet future demand. With demand moving accordingly, oil prices will continue to be set mostly by the market — despite external players’ best efforts. (McFarlane)

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.

This article “Why the Price of Filling Up Has Been Going Down” written by Alan Neuhauser stated that back in 2012. The article analyse fighters with the Islamic State group have seized oil fields, huge swathes of territory and major cities in Iraq and Syria, threatening oil supplies. On normal situation, this is going to threaten markets as it is threaten the supply of oil. Despite of the global unrest the prices at the pump in US are currently at their lowest levels in the year of 2012. According to the article there are several reason which make the price of oil fall, but the main reason which is causing this is the less use of oil crude after the Labor Day.

In addition to the US peak oil situation, the US Oil Drilling and Gas Extraction Industry faces heavy foreign market competition. In 2011, the US ranked 3rd in oil production, behind Saudi Arabia and Russia (Energy, 2012). Saudi Arabia’s OPEC governor expects Saudi output to rise steadily beyond 2030 with a 1.5 million barrel per day spare production capacity then (Energy, 2012). Russia holds the world’s largest

“Every 10% drop in prices of oil adds 0.1% to the US economy, and the sooner the Iraqis start pumping, the faster the plunge in per-barrel prices. A quick war that ends with a new oil minister in place by the end of the year would bump up Iraq's production to 4 million barrels per day by 2006 from a current 2 million, collapsing prices into the low teens“ (Lynn J Cook 1).

Since the oil embargo of 1977, there has been an increased awareness of our nation's energy security. As global population and energy consumption rise, the need for a stable energy supply has become a hot topic and a politically volatile issue. As our negative trade balance grows larger by the day, the United States finds itself in a rather precarious position. We are becoming more and more dependent on Middle East oil.

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

Mr. Anderson’s chapter concludes with the following “price admits American imports of crude are high but sees no feasible alternative. The demand for energy in America is simply great and oil is simply to important for the

In January 2016, the cost of a gallon of gas dropped below two dollars, and consumers were rejoicing. Driving that car with twelve miles to the gallon car wasn’t so bad. Going to the grocery store was a little cheaper because of the transportation costs of goods. Americans could afford a like extra and never wonder about why the gas dropped. We were still hurting from three dollars or more for a gallon. Companies in the United States started drilling for oil on American soil in larger quantities than before two years earlier in 2014. Jobs in the industry were aplenty. Young adults straight out of high school could go into training for a year and come out making six figures by they were twenty-five. The amount of oil produced was

The featured article “The End of Oil,” the author, Alex Kuhlman argues that oil production is decreasing due to the costs of production are rising because cheap and easily accessible oil is hard to find despite increased consumption.(Kuhlman, 2007). Kuhlman (2007) provides evidence both from oil demand and supply aspects to illustrate the imbalance which causes the end of oil.

According to current estimates, more than 80% of the world's proven oil reserves are located in OPEC Member Countries, with the bulk of OPEC oil reserves in the Middle East, amounting to around 66% of the OPEC total (OPEC Share of World Crude Oil Reserves, 2014). Competition amongst the U.S. and the Middle East has never reached this level before. There is a constant tension between the two countries and refuse to collaborate in dividing the market share equally. Furthermore, as both nations refuse any bipartisan agreement, there is no limiting the production of oil. Each nation is looking to drive out competition by any means. What they don’t realize is if they cooperated and reached an agreement amongst the international community, oil will remain profitable just as it was a few years ago. Though, this is unlikely to happen any time soon, but will eventually cause Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries to take a drastic decision when their main source of capital plummets due to the current price of oil. Profits are no longer seen in the oil industry. The Price of oil has been selling at around $50-$60 per barrel, not enough to cover production cost. The United States is able to withstand any contraction within the oil sector, as their financial portfolio is diversified, not solely reliant on the price of

During this period, the price of ‘Brent’ crude oil (like WTI) reached an all time high in July of 145.61 USD/BBL in response to strong economic conditions prior to the Global Financial Crisis hitting in early 2009. The price of ‘Brent’ crude oil also similarly bottomed out in 1970, with a record low of 2.23 USD/BBL and following the GFC, prices sharply fell, with prices at 62.04 USD/BBL as of April 2015. Over the 45-year period, significant events such as the GFC, the Iran/Iraq war, the Iranian revolution and various OPEC cuts (as shown in graph 1) has caused the price of ‘Brent’ crude oil and crude oil as a whole to historically be fairly volatile and as such, these various political and economy-wide factors provide an explanation for volatility in prices over the past 45 years.

Beginning June 2014, the price of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude has dropped from $105 per barrel to where it is now currently priced at $42 per barrel on November 2015, constituting a price decrease of more than 60% over a period of eighteen months. This price drop is due to an increase in oil production primarily coming from Saudi Arabia and Iraq along with the American shale plays that is causing an outward shift in the global supply of crude oil. With the short term demand for oil being inelastic, a moderate increase in supply will cause a large decrease in the market price. Basic intuition of an oil producing firm with enough market power to face a downward sloping demand schedule, OPEC, would have it so production is scaled back in order to drive prices back up to former levels, however, this is not the case of what happened. OPEC, along with its lead producing country, Saudi Arabia, has been producing at their maximum production capacity in order to saturate the market as much as possible and drive oil prices down even lower.

This global phenomenal threat has repeated itself many times throughout the centuries when it was first discovered. William Tammeus, writer of the (The Globe and mail) has stated that “Oil prices have fallen lately. We include this news for the benefit of gas stations, which otherwise wouldn’t learn of it for six months.” This ironic statement reflects on the oil company’s desire to capture more value from the market by simply delaying its price communications.

Who’s afraid of falling crude oil prices? Isn’t it something to celebrate from the consumers’ point of view, especially in the Asian region! The answer is perhaps “no”. Though the debate over the impact of plunge in crude oil price and its implications will continue for long, nothing can be said with fair amount of certainty as long as its link with the slowdown of Chinese economy.