What will the oil price recovery look like? It’s a topic being hotly debated across the oil capitals of the world; from Dubai to Aberdeen, from Houston to Calgary; in the coffee shops and around family dinner tables, all the way to the boardrooms.
Canadian oil and gas industry associations have delivered their outlooks for the coming year. Their forecasts are pretty grim. Job losses in the thousands, private and public sector budget cuts, drilling rigs banging against each other trying to find a parking spot. Realistically, the publicly published numbers are optimistic.
The price war rages on. Barrels of oil, lobbed into the world’s well-supplied market, are now worth less than $50 a piece. Producer factions are reporting their casualties. Multi-billion-dollar budget cuts. Multi-thousand employee layoffs. Hundreds of rig releases. Major project delays. And it’s only just begun. There is no mercy below $50.
I’m watching the screen. Every dollar knocked off a barrel of oil shakes the market like a mortar shell. This is war. World war. It’s a price war between the corporate foot soldiers of major oil producing nations. Oil prices have halved in three short months and the early casualties are starting to come in. […]
