This paper will cover oil price dynamics for the period starting from 2005 until the present moment of time. Exact price dynamics will be considered as well as a variety of factors influencing the oil price through the above mentioned period of time. The chart showing the dynamics of crude oil barrel price since 2001 is presented in fig. 1.
Figure 1. Dynamics of crude oil price per barrel for the period between January 1, 2001 and April 19, 2016 (Trading Economics, 2016).
Before the period, which is the subject of this paper, the oil price had been nearly steady for a long period of time. Starting from the 1980s and until 2003 the price of a barrel of oil had been steady averaging at about $25. In 2003 the average oil price increased about 20% and had reached $30 by the end of the year due to instability of governments in the leading oil producing countries like Nigeria, Venezuela and Iraq (USA Today, 2003).
The war in Iraq in 2003 became a notable factor for the world oil market due to the fact that there was a significant percentage of oil reserves in the country comparing to global indicators. As a result of the US invasion in Iraq, global oil supply decreased by 2 million barrels a day (Ibrahim, 2004). However, instability in Iraq was not the only reason for the rising prices, because at the same time a number of other factors had an impact on the oil market. These factors included increasing in global demand in petroleum at that moment of time as well as classical oil price gouging inspired by other large oil exporters like Indonesia and Mexico (Simmons, 2007).
After slight reverse of oil price throughout the end of 2004 and beginning of 2005, oil prices went on rising in March 2005 reaching $50 per barrel at that moment. And in June the barrel of oil peaked at $60. It became clear later, that 2005 became a pivotal moment for the oil market due to prominent changes in oil price elasticity. Before this moment, even small change of oil price had a significant impact on oil production volume (rising prices led to measurable increases in production and vice versa). And in new circumstances, this trend changed: now price increases led to only small grow of production (Murray & King, 2012).
The continued trend of prices increasing in 2005 was stimulated by the Hurricane Katrina, which hit the United States in August 2005. Moreover, the volume of oil production in Iraq went even lower, to 1 million barrels per day because of the civil war in the country (Krane, 2006). Geopolitical instability due to missile launches in North Korea in 2006 as well as Israeli-Lebanon war the same year made further contribution into growth of prices. All these factors allowed the oil price to beat the all-time record in the middle of 2006, when it reached $79 per barrel (Trading Economics, 2016). This even led to drop in oil demand in the Western countries. This phenomenon had happened for the first time since 1986 (Finfacts, 2007).
In 2007 a barrel of oil reached another psychologically important point of $90 due to constraints in Turkey and the decline of US dollar price in forex markets (BBC News, 2007). And the beginning of 2008 was marked by reaching new price record of $100. This happened because of tensions in Nigeria, one of the world leading exporters, on the New Year’s Day and market expectations of the fact that oil reserves in the United States would go on falling (Associated Press, 2008).
At that moment there were different views on the reasons of high oil prices. For instance, in March 2008 OPEC countries refused to increase oil output in order to decrease the oil price and blamed the United States of inappropriate economic policy, which made such high prices a reality (CBS News, 2008). During March and April, the oil prices consequently broke two new records. In March the price peaked at $110 per barrel, which was followed by an April increase of up to $117 caused by an attack on an oil pipe by a group of militants in Nigeria (BBC News, 2008).
In June 2008 another kind of high-speed price growth occurred. During June 6, 2008 the oil price increased by $11 in only 24 hours. This was the largest daily oil price growth in history, which was triggered by the fears of Israeli attack on Iran and consequent reducing supply of oil from Iran (Mouawad, 2008).
The final point in the long-term period of expensive oil was reached at the beginning of July 2008, when oil prices became the highest ever reaching about $146 per barrel. Such growth was supported by the continuing refusal of OPEC to increase oil output (Gorondi, 2008).
On July 15, 2008 the trend in oil price dynamics changed to its long-term decrease after the decision by the President George Bush lifting the ban for drilling of oil (CNN, 2008). This factor as well as a thaw in relations between the United States and Iran allowed the oil prices to drop to $113 per barrel, which was 22% lower than the July price record (Bloomberg News, 2008).
In September the prices fell below $100 following the news about the problems in the financial sector and following start of the financial crisis in the US as well as information from the Gulf of Mexico showing that recent Hurricane Ike hadn’t done significant damage to oil refineries (Saefong, 2008).
After Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, which triggered the start of the world financial crisis, the prices on oil declined to $92. The main strategical reasons of the long-term oil prices decline at that moment were increasing US dollar value in foreign exchange market alongside with trend of overall demand decline in Europe (Rooney, 2008). As a result, by the end of the year the prices had declined to $32 per barrel – the same level as they were in 2004-2005 (Trading Economics, 2016).
The OPEC countries were not interested in keeping low oil prices on oil for the long period of time, therefore they cut the oil output by 4.2 million barrels per day in order to increase the oil price. This decision of OPEC and parallel growth of oil demand in Asia shaped a long-term 2009-2010 trend of steadily increasing prices (Williams, 2011).
However, just like in the previous years, there were periods, when the price on oil followed the reverse trend. For instance, in May 2010 the oil prices decreased significantly in just two weeks (from $88 to $70, more than 20% decline) while the countries of European Union were discussing the ways of budget deficit reduction. This process showed that there were certain risks of European countries economies slowing down and consequent decline in oil demand. It could also potentially cause problems for the US economy and thus create a cumulative set of effects causing further oil price decrease (Lazzaro, 2010).
The prices had returned to the level of $90 per barrel by the end of 2010 due to increase of global demand on oil and very cold winter of 2010-2011, which affected countries in North America and Europe (Riley, 2010).
Arab Spring (the common name of turmoil in countries like Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Bahrain and others) became a large-scale geopolitical trend of 2011, which stimulated the growth of oil prices to $103 per barrel. This had been the first time when prices exceeded $100 mark since October 2008. Traders at that moment were concerned about the political crisis in Libya, which could become even harder to resolve and could trigger a further increase of oil prices due to the fact, that the country was the third largest producer of high-quality oil in Africa and had the largest amount of oil reserves in the continent (Rooney, 2011).
Despite Lybian crisis, the oil supplies remained stable. Moreover, Saudi Arabia guaranteed that it could increase oil output to reduce the effect of possible Lybian supply shortage. Though the most part of Libyan oil was exported to Europe, crisis in this country affected the global oil price. The crisis in the Middle East and Northern Africa led to the highest oil prices increase in two years. The Saudi Arabia guarantees didn’t have much influence on prices because the quality of the oil supplied by Lybia was more preferable to buy comparing to the oil from Saudi Arabia, which quality was lower. All these facts pushed the oil prices to more than $100 level again (Krauss & Mouawad, 2011).
The falling price of US dollar in April 2011 and the price of oil, which reached $112 per barrel, made a number of analysts suppose that US economy was going to enter a long-term recession, because the high price on oil would stimulate significant growth in gasoline prices (Kahn, 2011).
In June the situation changed, when dollar price increased while euro and other main currencies went down. The European economic crisis, which started in 2011, also influenced the situation. According to the information provided by Energy Information Association, the oil demand decreased by 3.5% comparing to the year before. These factors allowed the oil price to fall to near $93 per barrel (Kahn, 2011).
During the months of October and November the oil prices followed the reverse trend. At the end of October, the prices were 22% higher than at the beginning of the month due to the fact that concerns relating to the health of US economy had already passed by that moment. By the first decade of November the oil price had reached the level of $97 per barrel (Kahn, 2011).
In January 2012 the oil prices were steady, averaging at about $100 per barrel following concerns relating to oil supply from Iran. At that moment the sanctions against the country were introduced to its nuclear policy. As a result, the risk of closing Strait of Hormuz (through which about 20% of Iran oil was transported) increased (BBC News, 2012). Another factor keeping the prices high was scheduled closing of refineries in the United States in Europe due to decrease in oil demand (Associated Press, 2012).
In February Iran announced, that it would stop selling oil to the companies from the United Kingdom and France. This couldn’t have significant impact on overall amount of oil supply. Nevertheless, it triggered fears of further instability of supply. At the same time, the China was about to start performing actions pointed towards raising money supply and consequent economy growth stimulation. Finally, the bailout plan for Greece was expected to be approved. All these factors influenced the oil price increase, and it reached $105, which was the highest level during nine months preceding this situation (Gorondi, 2012).
2012 was generally a year without a definite trend of either oil price growth or decline. Despite the significant growth of oil price in February, in May oil prices again went down, reaching $95 per barrel, which was the lowest in 2012. It happened with a background of elections in France and Greece, who refused to support their existing governments, who were going to reduce expenditures in order to solve the debt crisis (Hargreaves, 2012).
August 2012 was characterized by yet another steep increase of oil prices, when the price grew 20% in 1.5 months. At that moment price was affected by numerous factors, which included oil refineries fire in California, instability in Iran, ongoing civil war in Syria and tropical storm Ernesto, which influenced the oil extraction platforms in the Caribbean Sea. Alongside with this, the rise in oil prices was also stimulated by the rising confidence of the economic growth in the US (Associated Press, 2012).
After several ups and downs the oil price reached $111 in November due to low amounts of oil inventories in the United States, positive news about US economy state as well as well positive dynamics of Greek debt crisis (Associated Press, 2012). At the end of the year the oil price averaged at about $87. Prices at the end of year were greatly influenced by the United States fiscal cliff and the actions performed by the Federal Reserve in order to stimulate US economic growth (Shore, 2012).
Oil refinery closures alongside with the positive dynamics of European stock markets at the beginning of 2013 stimulated oil price growth to $94 after its slight decline, following the news from the Federal Reserve, which might stop its stimulation package mentioned above (Gorondi, 2013).
In June 2013 the International Energy Agency published its forecast, according to which would rise till the end of the year, but not as much as it could be because of the economic problems in developed countries. This information triggered slight increase in oil prices which was followed by the reverse trend, when US Federal Reserve announced finishing its stimulus program and at the same time one of the biggest oil consumers, China, experienced economic problems. All these effects shaped the price of oil at $97 per barrel in June (Gorondi, 2013).
Further increase in prices was caused by continued unrest in Ukraine, which became significantly influenced by pro-Russian protesters and suspects that Russia directly took part in the conflict by sending its soldiers to Eastern Ukraine. Alongside with Ukraine problems, the increased tension in Libya and Northern Iraq offensive, which happened in June, boosted the oil price to about $105 (Associated Press, 2014).
Starting from this moment another long-term trend of prices decrease started. In August 2014 oil was traded at the average of $95 per barrel generally due to lower demand and high supply of commodities. Though the tensions in the Middle East and Ukraine were going on, the production of oil in Lybia went up. This fact alongside with economic slowdown in Europe and China made lower prices on oil more likely (Friedman, 2014).
In the second half of 2014 the demand of oil was still low. And at the same time a lot of new oil suppliers appeared. One of the most significant ones among them were the United States, which allowed to export the oil produced in the country to the global markets. These factors made the effect of the Mideast and Ukraine crises not significant in the world oil market. United States oil production increased 70% comparing to 2008 amounts. Iraq and Canada also increased oil production amounts (Associated Press, 2014). The production volume boost alongside with low demand in China and Europe as well as the OPEC decision not to reduce daily oil output led the oil prices to their five-year low, which was about $67 (Raval, 2014).
Heavy oil oversupply, economic problems in Europe and Asia, high US dollar price as well as no actions were performed by OPEC allowed the oil price to drop by 50% by the end of the year comparing to April indicators (Isidore, 2014).
As a result, in January 2015 the oil price averaged at about $48 per barrel (Sunne, 2015). However, the prices grew slightly after King Abdullah (the head of Saudi Arabia) death and the following concerns about the future of oil export from Saudi Arabia. Though the oil inventories in the United States had been the highest since 1982, the further price growth was stimulated by increased tension in the Middle East as well as increased intensity of the war in Ukraine. Due to these reasons, the oil price in the second half of February 2015 reached $63 (Krishnan & Gibbons, 2015).
Though there was a number of oil price increases and decreases mostly influenced by amount of oil production and geopolitical issues like war in Yemen, the general trend of decreasing prices was still in force. In July the prices reached $45 barrel, which was very close to the six-year low record due to fears of ongoing oversupply and continuing economic problems in China (Friedman, 2015).
This was not the end of prices decrease. Another low price record was reached in August 2015, when prices dropped to $39 per barrel becoming the lowest since October 2009 (Reuters, 2015). During the following months the price was varying between $40 and $50 barrel. However, the year ended with another record: the prices reached $36 per barrel due to ongoing high supply of oil from the United States alongside with the introduction of more effective ways of oil production in the US allowing even higher oil output and refusal of OPEC to cut down oil output. This had become the lowest price since 2004 (Faucon, 2015).
The start of 2016 was marked by a further drop in oil prices. At the end of January, the prices were $27 per barrel, which was 13-year low. At the beginning of February oil prices increased slightly to the level of $34 following the OPEC decision of oil output reduction and some slowdown of US GDP growth. (Reuters, 2016).
The latest highest oil price of 2016 was reached on April 12 due to decreasing price of US dollar (Sheppard, 2016).
As it is clearly seen from the oil price fluctuations described in this paper, the most common reason of changes in oil price is dynamics of oil demand, which is in turn closely connected to the general growth rate of the global economy. The price of oil is also heavily affected by the amount of inventories in the countries, which consume oil. The volume of oil in inventories usually increases during geopolitical tensions in the countries, which export oil, like Lybia, Iran, Iraq, Russia, Venezuela and others.
Alongside with the balance between demand and supply, some experts suppose that oil price change may also happen due to speculations in futures exchange markets (Wallace, 2008).
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