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The unthinkable has happened. While many renowned experts (?) recently claimed that the price for a barrel of oil would soon pass USD 200, we have now seen the price drop below USD 50/bbl (as of November 21).
This is USD 10/bbl less than it was when I wrote on this issue more than a year ago, stating that the price may fall (GEO ExPro 04/2007; http://www.geoexpro.com/news/breaking_n/). In the meantime we have seen prices go bananas and moving towards 150 USD/bbl. But certainly not the 200 or 250 UDS/bbl that some of the well paid fortune-tellers forecasted.
My statement - it was not a prophecy - on this issue was ridiculed by many at the time. The key question was if it is at all possible that a steady trend moving towards the sky could reverse direction? "Unlikely", many said. "Impossible", others volunteered to say. The high price was there to stay for a long time. One of the outcomes was expensive acreage. Another was heavy investments.
At this stage, my prophecy is that the price of oil will again increase. At what time, how fast, and to what level (time dependent), I will not have an opinion. I leave that to the smart guys that spend their valuable time analyzing whatever information and charts they find useful, then giving advice to those who are willing to listen.
While we are waiting, I will spend some of my time learning more about the exciting oil industry, its past and its present. In this issue we give you some few examples ranging from the discovery of oil in the Middle East in the 1930's to the new prospective shale gas trend in the eastern US. Both this articles exemplify that we live in a time of change. They tell us that yesterday's truths may no longer be valid. That's a good lesson for me, and maybe for a few others.
Updated: 23.04.2009 15:32 by Alf Kvassheim
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