Thursday, August 12, 2021

Oil: By 2050 will $10 be the new price point?

Wood Mackenzie (Apr 15) has the following scenario:

If the world acts decisively to limit global warming to 2°C by 2050, the scale of change will revolutionise the energy industry . . . Ann-Louise Hittle, vice president, Macro Oils, at global natural resources consultancy Wood Mackenzie, said: “Our Accelerated Energy Transition Scenario – AET-2 – gives an indication of how energy demand, supply and pricing will change if policy and technology are rapidly deployed to cut greenhouse gas emissions in line with the Paris Agreement.

Under this Accelerated Energy Transition scenario, Wood Mackenzie sees Brent oil's price ranging from $10 to $18 by 2050. It should be noted that this is a scenario. It isn't the scenario that WILL happen, but it COULD happen.

As stunning as $10 might be, BP back in January 2018 had a research paper where they argued that we were going to see a "shift in paradigm from an age of (perceived) scarcity to an age of abundance." Also, dropping to $10 a barrel, doesn't mean that oil prices won't get to $80 in 2021 due to increases in demand over the short-term or that in the mid-term we might see serious shortages of oil due to a lack of investment.

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