May 7, 3:00 pm EST
Crude oil crossed the $70 mark today, and with new sanctions to be placed on Iran, likely tomorrow, $100 oil is looking very possible.
We’ve talked a lot about oil prices over the past couple of years. In early 2016, we talked about the price crash that was induced by OPEC as an effort to crush the competitive U.S. shale industry.
While they nearly succeeded, these oil producing countries nearly killed their own economies in the process. So, in effort to drive oil prices higher, to salvage oil revenues, they flipped the switch in late 2016, cutting production for the first time since 2008. And they did so, in a market that was already undersupplied.
In my January 12th note, we revisited Leigh Goehring’s call for $100 oil. Goehring is one of the best research-driven commodities investors. And has been calling for triple-digit oil prices–this year! He predicted a surge in global oil demand (which has happened) and a drawdown on supplies (which has been happening at “the fastest rate ever experienced”). He said that with the OPEC production cuts from November 2016, we’re “traveling down the same road” as 2006, which drove oil prices to $147 a barrel by 2008.
Below is the chart of oil. A break of $70 is putting the price of oil very close to the levels that it collapsed from that Thanksgiving Day evening back in 2014. That was when OPEC announced that it opted NOT to cut production, despite an oversupply and plunging prices.