Are Oil Prices Headed toward $100 a Barrel?
nasdaq, 12 June 2021
On June 1, 2021, Jeremy Schwartz, Global Head of Research a
t WisdomTree and regular host of the Behind the Markets podcast, was joined by Mobeen Tahir, Associate Director of Research at WisdomTree, to host Erik Gilje, professor of finance at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business. The topic was oil, and the focus was on Erik’s bullish view on the commodity stemming from structural supply issues in the U.S. amid an improving demand outlook.
Professor Gilje outlined that over the last decade, almost all new supply of oil has come from North America—i.e., either Canada or the U.S.—while the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its partners (OPEC+) have lost market share. The group was forced by the COVID-19 pandemic to reduce 9.7 million barrels of supply in what can be characterized as a dramatic and unprecedented policy coordination.
But OPEC+ may not necessarily be fixated on quickly bringing this supply back online. This is because the group is possibly less worried about losing further market share to U.S. shale producers now than in the past. This marks a major shift in the dynamic between the two and could be the key force that drives oil markets higher.
According to Professor Gilje, U.S. shale production is significantly impaired and this is driven by structural reasons. When West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil was around $70 per barrel in 2018, there were 874 operating U.S. oil rigs. Today, there are 359. Similarly, the number of fracking crews in operation back then was 485 compared to 226 today. Investment in U.S. shale has fallen meaningfully, and U.S. oil production is likely to decline over the next 1–2 years, according to the professor.
