Oil barrels Ahmad Al-Rubaye/Getty Images

The Abnormality of Oil

At the 2017 Abu Dhabi Petroleum Exhibition and Conference, the consensus among industry executives was that oil prices will still be around $60 per barrel in November 2018. But there is evidence to suggest that the uptick in global growth and developments in Saudi Arabia will push the price as high as $80 in the meantime.

LONDON – Writing about oil prices is always risky. In a January 2015, I suggested that oil prices would not continue to fall, and even predicted that they would “finish the year higher than they were when it began.” I was wrong then; but I might not be wrong for much longer.

I recently spoke at the massive Abu Dhabi Petroleum Exhibition and Conference (ADIPEC), which is a kind of Davos for oil-market participants. While there, I caught the tail end of a discussion among senior oil executives who all agreed that at this time next year, crude oil will still be around $60 per barrel, as it is today.

I was about to be interviewed by the CNBC reporter Steve Sedgwick, to whom I said, “That would be a first. Oil prices hardly moving in a year?” Needless to say, Sedgwick began the interview by telling the audience what I had said, and quizzed me on why I disagreed with the others.

https://prosyn.org/U451k7M