{"id":6495,"date":"2016-01-20T17:39:50","date_gmt":"2016-01-20T16:39:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=6495"},"modified":"2016-01-20T17:39:50","modified_gmt":"2016-01-20T16:39:50","slug":"oil-price-low-can-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=6495","title":{"rendered":"Oil price – how low can it go?"},"content":{"rendered":"

How low can the oil price go?\u00a0 This is the question on many peoples lips at the moment.\u00a0 After an extraordinary 15 year upward trend interrupted only by the financial crisis the oil price has been falling for over a year and currently shows no signs of stopping.\u00a0 An oil price of $10\/barrel looks quite possible.\u00a0 A price at which almost no oil can be removed from the ground at a profit.\u00a0 Is peak oil dead or merely sleeping?<\/p>\n

I heard Sir Ian Wood<\/a> of the Wood group interviewed on BBC radio 4 today programme.\u00a0 He was quite hawkish on the oil price.\u00a0 What he said was something we tend to forget (I had) and that is masked by the current production glut.\u00a0 That is underlying production is falling at 10% a year.\u00a0 The graph shows what this would mean going forward from 2014 production.<\/p>\n

\"oil<\/a>Of course that assumes absolutely no increases in production, which is unrealistic, nevertheless it does show us the challenge of replacement. \u00a0 Last year only non-OPEC and OECD countries (excluding Europe) managed significant increases in production, all other regions were in decline or production increases were minimal.\u00a0 The overall global increase in production was 2.3%.\u00a0 Rarely (if ever) has global oil production achieved a 10% in a year .\u00a0 Of course at the moment shale oil has arrived on the scene and there is plenty of oil swilling around.\u00a0 Going forward though there are plus and minuses on the oil price which make it difficult to call.<\/p>\n

On the doveish side…<\/p>\n