What do they mean “touches $100 a barrel”? It has been at or above $100/barrel for almost 2 months now.
Sensationalism.
‘point of no return’
Prices return once supply is returned.
The Guardian is being very dramatic here.
If oil wells are capped off, geological and chemical changes occur and the oil can stop flowing. It’s easily been that long; it was a concern in the first 4-6 weeks as storage ran out.
Also, there is no sign that Iran is standing down. If anything, they’re getting more bold.
This is to say that I don’t think supply will return in a timescale that the markets are pricing for.
Yup. Beware anyone predicting the future while not predicting a time line.
The market isn’t predicting anything. The market is reacting to tweets and the longer this goes on the longer China keeps selling solar panels.
Things have changed since the '70s oil crisis people like to dig up.
The amount of copium being consumed by “experts” in finance and economics in the face of actual information is disturbing.
Iran and the AI bubble are shaping up to be the greatest economic collapse in industrial history
It’s hard to know the future. People’s habits are hard to change. But, sometimes there’s a change that’s significant enough and people don’t go back.
In the current world where people were already switching to photovoltaics and EVs before the crisis, it’s easy to imagine that a lot of people who switch because of the crisis won’t be going back if oil gets cheap again.
Also, from what I’ve read, each week that the Straight of Hormuz is closed will take about a month for things to get back to normal. So, at this point, we’re already talking years before things could go back to normal. Plus, if this results in another major recession, by the time the economy comes back it might look completely different.
I know the wells of the Saudis, and I presume their neighbors, are old wells, that long since lost positive pressure, they pump water down there, to force the crude to the top as it’s lighter than water.
The markets and msm have both been insanely optimistic for no reason. If anything, this undersells it.
Even if the war ended tomorrow, you wouldn’t see normal flow for well over a year.
Nations are learning the hard way how to get by without oil. I don’t see them running back to petroleum unless there’s a significant price drop.
Let’s be real, oil / petroleum / gasoline / aviation gas are going to be part of the economy for decades. Countries are going to get by with less oil, but not without oil. There are things like planes that really require a very energy dense source of energy. There are other things like buses and local delivery trucks that can do fine with batteries, but where vehicles are an investment that is paid off over a decade. The new ones might be electric, but the old ones won’t be replaced soon. This might have accelerated the transition in a significant way, but oil is such a big part of everything that it’s still going to be around for a long time.
What I hope is that there are countries, say in Africa, that never really fully industrialized with an oil-based economy. Hopefully they can skip right past that and start with clean energy right from the start.
Nations are learning the fast way how much sunshine costs in China.
