The falling price of a barrel of oil – which could go as low as $10 this year – has knock-on effects on fuel prices, general spending and energy costs
If you ever went looking for evidence to prove that economists, analysts, journalists and so-called expert commentators haven’t a clue what they are talking about much of the time, you would not have to go much further than a quick glance at oil production and prices over recent years.
For many years up until the very recent past, there was much talk of Peak Oil and what would happen to our world when fossil fuels dried up. Then technology stepped in, production methods got better and oil started to emerge from the ground in places where it had previously been inaccessible. Suddenly all the talk was of a glut in supply and Peak Oil became a less hot topic of conversation – but it’s likely to return. At least for now. This glut in supply is either good news or very bad news, depending on which side of the environmental and economic fence you are sitting and how forward-looking you’d like to be.
In the early summer of 2008, as a barrel of crude oil reached $147 (€136) on international markets, much talk was of what would happen when a barrel hit $200. Before it could get close to that, Lehman Brothers came crashing down, taking the global economy with it. The economic shockwaves sent oil prices into a tailspin, which is starting to look like a death spiral.
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