Oil Back at $95 — but Only in 24 Years’ Time: OPEC

Oil prices will take decades to recover and will still not reach the peak seen in recent years, according to the latest World Oil Outlook (WOO) from OPEC.

In the group’s latest outlook on supply, demand and prices to 2020 and 2040, OPEC predicted that a barrel of oil would cost (in real terms) around $70 by 2020 and $95 by 2040, a far cry from a high point of $114 a barrel last seen in June 2014 before prices began to plunge on oversupply. On Wednesday, a barrel of benchmark Brent crude cost $36.51, a shade above WTI at $36.47.

Price declines were exacerbated by the decision last year by OPEC, the 12-member producer group led by Saudi Arabia, not to cut production. Still, OPEC’s Secretary General Abdalla Salem El-Badri said OPEC had been a bastion of stability amid volatile times for the oil industry.

“The supply and demand balance in 2015 has been one of oversupply, with stock levels rising to well above the five-year average. Despite this market instability, OPEC has continued to be an efficient, reliable and economic supplier of oil,” El-Badri noted in the foreword of report.

CNBC

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