Introduction and context
The oil industry and its pricing are an important subject in the international finance. The oil is the most important commodity in the world economy. Oil took an economic and geopolitics importance after the World War II in the 1945 and the Gold Standard elimination from the United States of America in 1971. The oil and its price in the United States Dollar are the bases of the world economy. Currently, the oil is its lower value from 2003 when the oil barrel has a value of 20-25 USD. The oil barrel achieves the highest value of history in the years of 2012 and 2013 with values of 140-150 USD. The previous values where the incentive to develop the oil shale industry in the United States of America and Canada, the deep water oil deposits in Brazil and Norway and new oil producers different to the Opec producers and Russia.
Resistance and support price
The prices of oil barrel today have a support value that depends on the traditional oil producers that need a higher price (20 USD) to balance their national budgets and the resistance of the price depends on the new oil producers (especially the United States of America) that have the incentive to produce a maximum capacity with oil prices over 50 USD.
Analysis by country and region
Producers with state control in oil production:
The Opec producers: Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Venezuela. There are two trends in the Opec producers, the Saudi Arabia group that prefer to maintain market share no matter the oil price and the Venezuela group that prefer higher prices no matter the market share. Iran has a non-aligned position influenced by the elimination of commerce barriers with the United States and Europe from 2015.
Russia, Norway and Brazil are not OPEC members, the state has an important stake in the oil policy, and its decisions are no aligned with the OPEC.
Producers without state control in oil production:
United States of America, Canada and Europe are the regions that have companies with independence policies of oil production
Future support and resistance of the price:
The new energy sources will be the most important factor that will affect the demand of the oil industry in the future. China, Europe and North America are investing billions of dollars in research and development in solar, the wind and geothermic energy sources and on the demand side, the industry and consumers require less energy per capita thanks to a more efficient consumption.
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