{"id":1976,"date":"2014-11-23T15:21:59","date_gmt":"2014-11-23T20:21:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=1976"},"modified":"2014-11-23T15:21:59","modified_gmt":"2014-11-23T20:21:59","slug":"whos-ready-for-30-oil-the-automatic-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=1976","title":{"rendered":"Who’s Ready For $30 Oil? – The Automatic Earth"},"content":{"rendered":"

Who’s Ready For $30 Oil? – The Automatic Earth<\/a>.<\/p>\n

How low can and will oil prices go, and what will the effects of those prices be? I bet you\u2019ll have a hard time finding even just two people who have the same opinion on that. Not that it\u2019s merely a matter of opinion, mind you, there are a great number of real life factors that come into play. It\u2019s not an easy game.<\/p>\n

OPEC gets together next week, and it\u2019s a cartel divided. Many if not most of its members are suffering some kind of losses at present prices, and the obvious choice seems to be to cut output in order to raise prices again. But that\u2019s not easy either, because at lower prices they need more output, not less, to minimize the damage. Besides, is non-OPEC producers don\u2019t cut their output, OPWC cuts may do very little to lift prices.<\/p>\n

After the recent plunge in prices, WTI is in the $75 per barrel range, and Brent around $80, the playing field has already been altered significantly. Some producers are fine with oil at $60, others need $120. Many Middle East governments need high prices to keep domestic unrest at bay, even if they can produce relatively cheaply. Some, like Venezuela, are already very close to what looks like a collapse.<\/p>\n

There doesn\u2019t seem to be much doubt that Saudi Arabia\u2019s decision to cut its prices has played a major role in bringing down prices. The reason why it\u2019s done that, however, is not so clear. Weakening the economic and political power of Russia, Venezuela and ISIS is a very obvious underlying reason. That the House of Fahd would engage in some sort of battle with US shale seems less likely; the Saudi rulers don\u2019t fight the US that has protected them militarily for decades in the volatile region they\u2019re in.<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Who’s Ready For $30 Oil? – The Automatic Earth. How low can and will oil prices go, and what will the effects of those prices be? I bet you\u2019ll have a hard time finding even just two people who have the same opinion on that. Not that it\u2019s merely a matter of opinion, mind you, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[588,592,600,701],"class_list":["post-1976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","tag-oil","tag-oil-price","tag-opec","tag-saudi-arabia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1976"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1976\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1977,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1976\/revisions\/1977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}