Our Opinion: 2022

Whilst investors are assuming that energy prices will stay high, history may suggest the opposite.

In reality, higher prices curbed consumption by encouraging a drive to energy efficiency, while new discoveries were made and extraction rates improved. Supply exceeded demand and the oil price crashed. By 1995, when oil was supposed to have run out, BP was estimating that there were 50 years of reserves left.

The oil price surged again in 2008, reaching $147 a barrel, fell to $40 in the financial crisis and then recovered to $100. In 2014, it crashed again as fracking in the US increased supply. In the pandemic, the price briefly went negative as demand fell.

Experience of the past 50 years therefore tells us that surges in price are met by a response in both demand and supply and the price then falls back. Oil intensity – the volume of oil consumed per unit of growth – has fallen steadily, halving since 1984 even though demand has risen by two-thirds since then. The constraint of the oil price on the global economy continues to fall.

Yet the current assumption is that oil and gas prices will at least stay high if not go higher. The optimists believe that an oil price around $100 a barrel is here to stay – which still means that inflation should fall as the increases in the past year drop out of the comparator numbers. The pessimists believe Russia’s wild forecast that the price is heading for $300 a barrel.

If oil prices remain at current levels, there will be a significant supply response over the coming 12-18 months which will generate a global supply surplus/rising oil inventory in 2023. With the IMF forecasting a sharp slowdown in growth this year and next (from 6.1% in 2021 to 3.6%) and much of China in a never-ending lockdown, slower demand growth looks likely.

Supply is likely to rise for three reasons. First, Russian oil production, which accounts for more than 10% of world supply, should remain high. In the short term there are already signs that oil production is falling sharply due to Western sanctions but exports have remained relatively robust, according to tanker data. There are plenty of Asian buyers happy to buy at discounts of $30 a barrel while the effectiveness of sanctions invariably fades over time.

The media assumption is that the war in the Ukraine will last for years. This is possible, but it is equally possible that Russia will be looking for an honourable exit as soon as possible. If so, Europe will be anxious to resume imports of oil and gas as soon as possible, especially if they came through Ukraine.

Production from members of the Opec+ producer group is likely to continue to increase steadily. Six producers – Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Algeria and Russia – have spare capacity, while production in Iran and Venezuela is likely to recover. Venezuelan output fell 85% in the 15 years to 2020, but has subsequently doubled. Additionally, shale production in the US is growing rapidly, with high prices incentivising expansion.

Such excess supply should bring prices down sharply. This would feed through into lower petrol and gas costs for both consumers and businesses, causing inflation to drop. Wages that have lagged inflation on the way up would also lag on the way down, raising living standards.

A $40 drop in the price of a barrel of oil could release $400bn of liquidity into the global economy. This should reverse the recent strengthening of the US Dollar. Lower fuel prices in 2023 could bring not just lower inflation but also higher living standards, improved liquidity, a pick-up in growth and corporate profits and rising equity markets.

In the longer term, increased investment in renewables and nuclear, together with improving energy efficiency, will further erode demand for fossil fuels. This is not the last time that oil and gas prices will spike upwards but, despite the inevitable global pessimism that such spikes bring, they are likely to get shorter, less frequent and less economically damaging.

24th July 2022