The Price Of Oil, Natural Disasters, Economic Trends And The Lack Of Regulation

Oil is the product that each and every one of us use. It can be used for fuel, heating and even cooking. The most often known for unstable price is crude oil or gasoline. According to the The Economist, The main reason for price shifts of oil is oversupply. The oil production in Saudi rose 10.3 million barrels per day. This increase is the effect of a new method that I being applied to oil extraction. This method is called fracking, fracking is where they drill into tight-rock formations then gradually turning horizontal for several thousand feet more. This results to accommodations to multiple oil wells. This new approved method of oil harvesting has raised the productivity gains and reduced the cost of harvesting oil.

High oil price for last few years drove the energy industry to come up with a new technological innovation and the result is a new drilling technique like hydraulic fracturing. This new technology made drilling easy in North Dakota and Texas (Timiraos, 2014). With more oil drilled domestically, U.S became net energy exporter instead of an importer. Also falling demand due to energy conservation, more efficient cars, less demand in China and OPEC opted against cutting production levels made the price go down. When Global economic growth was slowing and most economists agree that both supply and demand played role in the last year oil price plunge. Driven by the increased supply, oil price dropped from $82 to $50 between Oct'14 and Jan'15. The IMF summarizes 58% of the drop in oil price to supply and only 42% to demand.

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 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)

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.

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

The article entitled “4 Reasons Why the Price of Crude Oil Dropped” by Evan Tarver offer some of the possible reasons. According to Tarver the strength of the US dollar could be one of the reason for drop in the oil prices. Tarver also reveals that Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is unwilling to stabilize the oil market and this has an effect on the oil prices. Other reasons identified in the article include the oversupply of the crude and the declining of the demand.

Crude oil is a naturally occurring substance,it is primarily composed of hydrocarbon deposits and other organic matter.Crude oil was first discovered and developed during the Industrial Revolution, and its industrial uses were first developed in the 19th century. Newly invented machines and mechanisms dramatically transformed the way in which we work, and they relied heavily, on these resources to function.Today, the world's economy is largely dependent on nonrenewable resources such as crude oil, and the demand for these resources often initiate political unrest, since a limited number of countries control and maintain the largest reservoirs. Like any industry, supply and demand heavily affects the prices and profitability of crude oil. The

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

Oil is a limited commodity with an unlimited demand. Very few nations have the luxury of having their own supply to which they can fulfill their own needs, while other countries clamour for what they can get . The countries with oil realized instead of competing with one another on exports , it would be much more profitable to simply work together and cooperate in their production of oil, rather than compete. In doing this, these countries will then be able to influence the market magnitudes more.

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).

Then, the landing journey of oil prices had begun, and the price of Brent crude was averaged $ 57 a barrel (See figure.2) . The sharp decline in the oil prices in the years followed by suspending the sanctions, it has not due to the return of Iran to the market only, but in addition to other factors contributed to it. With the passage of time. it has been flooding the market with large quantities of oil and the price fall to $ 28 a barrel, which is sounding the alarm in the OPEC.

It is said that OPEC as a cartel has been unfruitful is maintaining the price levels. Some say that OPEC and Saudi Arabia are purposely not relenting to reduce the production as oil production from Shale Gas formations is much more expensive than oil production at Saudi Arabia (~$5-6/barrel) which is the lowest in the world. OPEC and Saudi Arabia hope to wipe out the Shale Gas producers by the continued fall of crude oil price levels to less than $50/barrel after which it is believed that it would be unviable for the Shale Gas producers to continue.