A lot of Americans voted for Trump because they were hoping he would be able to bring prices down. Cheaper oil could help with that. Who doesn’t want to pay less at the pump? But, also, because petroleum based fuels and other products are ubiquitous along essentially every supply chain, it could help bring down other prices, as well. I don’t think it would help that much, though. It might bring down costs for producers a little (or maybe a lot, depending on the industry), but there’s no guarantee those cost savings are going to be passed on to the consumer in the form of lower prices. Most producers would just pocket the savings. And why shouldn’t they? Businesses exist to make the highest possible profit for their owners.
To even get cheaper oil, though, oil producers would need to over produce. They’d need to drive down the price of their own product. Why would they do that? Why would oil producers choose to reduce their own profits? That doesn’t make any sense. Plus, as more and more oil is pumped out of the ground, what remains is harder and more costly to extract. So, it costs more to extract a barrel of oil than it used to, and that means that oil producers have to sell each barrel of oil for a higher price to cover the higher costs of extraction. Drop the price of a barrel of oil too much, and it no longer becomes cost effective for oil producers to extract oil from the ground. The price of oil has to stay over a certain threshold for continued oil extraction to even be financially viable.
For prices to come down, demand would have to come down, and that would likely lead to a recession. For prices to come down significantly, it would probably require a significant recession. That’s it, that’s how you bring prices down. So, pick your poison: higher prices or recession.
Yeah, there’s already thousands of wells literally sitting idle because prices are too low. They drill them when they can get a good deal with the drilling company, and let 'em sit idle until the economics make sense, or until the infrastructure has been developed better in the area.
Too much oil lowers prices and burns up profitability, even though it might make consumers happy. American shale firms are already pumping historic amounts of oil. And there’s a supply glut in the global market.
“As crude prices come down, we expect the industry revenues to go down and profits to go down,” ExxonMobile CEO Darren Woods told CNBC last week.
Too much oil lowers prices and burns up profitability, even though it might make consumers happy. American shale firms are already pumping historic amounts of oil. And there’s a supply glut in the global market.
Exactly, and I’m betting that glut is a result of one of two factors (or a combination of the two): either oil producers thought there would be a higher demand than there actually is and/or they were incentivized to over produce, probably through government subsidies, of one kind or another.
A lot of Americans voted for Trump because they were hoping he would be able to bring prices down. Cheaper oil could help with that. Who doesn’t want to pay less at the pump? But, also, because petroleum based fuels and other products are ubiquitous along essentially every supply chain, it could help bring down other prices, as well. I don’t think it would help that much, though. It might bring down costs for producers a little (or maybe a lot, depending on the industry), but there’s no guarantee those cost savings are going to be passed on to the consumer in the form of lower prices. Most producers would just pocket the savings. And why shouldn’t they? Businesses exist to make the highest possible profit for their owners.
To even get cheaper oil, though, oil producers would need to over produce. They’d need to drive down the price of their own product. Why would they do that? Why would oil producers choose to reduce their own profits? That doesn’t make any sense. Plus, as more and more oil is pumped out of the ground, what remains is harder and more costly to extract. So, it costs more to extract a barrel of oil than it used to, and that means that oil producers have to sell each barrel of oil for a higher price to cover the higher costs of extraction. Drop the price of a barrel of oil too much, and it no longer becomes cost effective for oil producers to extract oil from the ground. The price of oil has to stay over a certain threshold for continued oil extraction to even be financially viable.
For prices to come down, demand would have to come down, and that would likely lead to a recession. For prices to come down significantly, it would probably require a significant recession. That’s it, that’s how you bring prices down. So, pick your poison: higher prices or recession.
Yeah, there’s already thousands of wells literally sitting idle because prices are too low. They drill them when they can get a good deal with the drilling company, and let 'em sit idle until the economics make sense, or until the infrastructure has been developed better in the area.
Exactly, and I’m betting that glut is a result of one of two factors (or a combination of the two): either oil producers thought there would be a higher demand than there actually is and/or they were incentivized to over produce, probably through government subsidies, of one kind or another.