A Brief History Of The Oil Crash
January 16th, 2015 9:04 AM
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Reuters Energy analyst John Kemp has published a timeline of events that explain the latest crash in crude oil prices. As energy prices enter a new era, we’ll be focusing more and more on this sector, and how it relates to the automobile.
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I moved to Texas just as the last crash was getting over with. I got a pretty good deal on my cabin in the woods. I'm about 3 years from retirement (sooner if I can figure it out) and I'll be moving back to California (family). All I ask is that if it does crash again, it recovers in time for me to sell my place for some kind of decent profit and I can payoff my new cabin in the Sierras.
I think it'll be low for awhile. Letting prices drop was smart by OPEC, but they'll always have shale oil knocking at their door, and technology will continue to drive the break-even point down. I would also suspect that most developing countries won't follow our suburbanization patterns quite like we did. It isn't very sustainable and outside of the conditions we had post war, it doesn't seem like a reasonable direction for them to take. So while their growth will increase demand, I don't think it will be proportional. Additionally they'll have some advantages of utilizing our technology. Global conflict is probably the greatest variable. I'm still waiting for all the oil we went to Iraq for even if it seems we don't need it now.
The timing of the cutbacks from the oil producers is going to be interesting. I'm watching this from the fence in western Canada. CAPEX cuts in the 30% of what was budgeted for 2015 have already been announced. Proportionnally, layoff so far in Canada have been lower than that so far. Keep in mind Suncor is letting 1000 people go, Shell trimmed their headcount by about 10% by Fort Mac. In Canada, the drill rig count is behind year on year by roughly 25% for December. More cutbacks to come is likely in my opinion. That link was a great find. It's one thing to find information about commodity markets, but putting the story in chronological order puts context like very few sources can put together.
Something that never gets mentioned is that fracking is an American phenomena. What happens when the rest of the world starts using these techniques?