- Joined
- 14 February 2005
- Posts
- 15,096
- Reactions
- 16,869
At US$ 68 per barrel, oil is now quite some way below the point at which some sources of supply are profitable. They'll continue operating, since once you've drilled the wells etc the actual operation isn't hugely expensive, but at this price quite a few projects would never have gone ahead in the first place. Assuming the low price stays around for a while, in due course there will be projects that would have gone ahead but end up being cancelled.
So my thinking is that, whilst markets can do anything in the short term, this price for oil is probably unsustainable in the longer term unless there's either a sustained drop in consumption and/or those who have the ability to develop cheaper sources of oil choose to do so (most notably Venezuela - but they'd likely need a new government first so it's not a simple matter of economics to develop oil there).
So my thinking is that, whilst markets can do anything in the short term, this price for oil is probably unsustainable in the longer term unless there's either a sustained drop in consumption and/or those who have the ability to develop cheaper sources of oil choose to do so (most notably Venezuela - but they'd likely need a new government first so it's not a simple matter of economics to develop oil there).