Oil Predictions (previous blogged on 28 July 2006, 10:08:09 PM)

What the corporate big shots are saying

In December a litre of petrol cost around R5. 8 months later, we’ll be paying R7 a litre. Where will we be by the end of the year?

On New years day this year (2006) I remember reading – with disbelief – that experts (people who called themselves bankers, or economists, and who are generally respected for their insights) were predicting oil prices to average around $50 a barrel this year. They maintained this delusion until April/May, and even for some time after oil prices first broached the $70 level. Does anyone know when last oil was in $60-something territory? It’s been more than a few weeks now, and it’s fair to say it’s heading north, to $80.

Right now we’re at $75.01 [$98 in 2008], and we’re looking at another petrol price hike next week. I called a friend of mine, who works at Standard Bank (in the Merchant Division). He organizes finance and sets up deals between the big blue chips – most recently, companies like Sasol. I asked him, since future projections of oil prices form an important backdrop to these deals, what the industry insiders (some would say experts) were predicting. He said the feeling was that $100 was certainly possible over the short term, but that over the longer term (1-2 years) they saw oil slipping back to $50. Say what?

I asked him to substantiate the reasoning they were using, but I am under the impression they are playing with numbers, rather than astutely aware of a bottom-line in-the-desert-and-the-dust paradigm, an unshakable real-framework when dealing with oil prices.

Here’s reality: We’re in a new era. Things are different now. Two decades ago we were still in an era of Discovery. We could boost capacity when things got comfortable, because we had some West-controlled oil fields like Prudhoe, and the North Sea, and the Saudi fields were in good nick. Today we’re in an era of Depletion, meaning, as supply gets tighter, all we can do is pump faster. Unfortunately we’ve reached a stage now where we’re pretty efficient, and demand is starting to outpace our efforts at being both efficient producers and efficient consumers (if ‘efficient consumer’ makes sense).

Thus the overriding paradigm is that you have tightening supply, and demand inflation, which is simply a situation of consumers demanding more goods than what is being produced. And abracadabra, prices will increase.

And they are. There are a few headlines wailing: ‘Now for the big squeeze’ and ‘Markets stunned by 7.5% surge in factory gate prices’. There are also experts like Jim Rogers who are now openly stating the obvious: Without a major new oil discovery, prices are going to shoot upwards, and everyone (‘including me’, he confides) is going to be shocked. Merrill Lynch, for example, continue – I don’t know why – to pontificate, seeing $60 for the foreseeable future.

At the moment we have some serious things going on. We’ve got a disaster in Iraq – the country is nowhere near the production it was at Prewar, and is unlikely to come anywhere near those levels for months or years. We’ve also got a widening crisis in the Middle East, which threatens to suck in the world’s second largest supplier – Iran. And while all this is happening, China’s economy is galloping at almost 11%.

While my friend at Standard Bank suggested – even without a major discovery – that we’ll see prices somehow fall asleep at a $50 level (he’s even suggested $45) the above processes are continuing unabated. $45 would certainly be possible if 10% of the world stopped consuming at the rate they are consuming (but downscaling will happen whether we choose to or not in the future), if Israel and their enemies had a 1 year anniversary of being Forever Friends and if Hurricanes basically hovered in the same spot for days on end. It’s more likely that the Boks will beat New Zealand, cows will jump over the moon, and pigs will take flight.

So since higher – that’s much higher – oil prices are guaranteed in the near future (alarm bells aren’t ringing yet, but they will be), what are the implications?
In a word, inflation. Inflation hurts creditors, so expect banks to backfire with higher interest rates (and that’s going to hurt everyone: credit card holders, anyone in debt).
Holders of fixed assets like property can usually expect the value of these assets to increase (as inflation increases).

I believe we are moving towards a condition known as galloping inflation. Prices are going to increase too rapidly over a short period of time. Nobody expects this to happen. It’s known as a ‘hard landing’, but I prefer to call a spade a spade: it’s a crash. In a crash, people lose their jobs in the millions, and soon no one has any money. There’s a lot of panic selling, including cars and homes. Under those conditions, things that we thought had a lot of value (like a house, or a car), suddenly have a lot less value. Everyone is selling because the middle class is taking a hit. I don’t believe this is a ‘negative’ or pessimistic’ view. I honestly see a number of signals supporting this view (and I am not the only one) and I sincerely hope I’ve miscalculated.

The only class to come out of this mess more or less intact will not be the rich, but the super rich. They can pick up these properties at bargain sale after bargain sale, by dipping into their vast fortunes and expanding their empires. That’s not to say the super rich have orchestrated a crash – over the very long term I doubt whether depletion is in anyone’s interest. Perhaps major landowners who have the relics of feudalism hanging on their walls (spears, shields, coats of arms etc) might come into their own again.

While the opinion expressed in the above paragraph might seem overly imaginative, I do suggest people start to think, and use their own imaginations. Things are happening in the world now that are not normal. We are way beyond normal, and the crazy thing is, nobody seems to be picking up these signals. Oh and one more thing, I received an sms yesterday from my friend, the banker. Here’s the exact quote:

“I am busy changing my mind, thinking that the price is actually only going up from here.”

World: Get Used To Doom and Gloom - My Predictions

When serious information is communicated, people quickly filter it into good/bad news, and the worst news goes immediately to a recycle bin called: Doom and Gloom. And the purveyors of these facts are called Doomsayers and 'Negative'. C'mon people, a bit of critical thinking...think you can do that? It's the least you can do.

I have predicted on this website $100 oil for about 2 years before it happened. I've suggested investing in gold when gold was still $300. (Invest in coal now too). Stock exchanges worldwide are at an extreme level of volatility. This will get worse, with some massive downward corrections. To be clear, by July this year, $90 oil will be a distant memory; two digit oil will have a 'feel-good' factor about it. By July oil will be anywhere between $105 and $120. What people simply don't realise is that none of this is temporary. It's not a temporary blip, temporary problems, temporary shutdowns, temporary crisis. It's something else, and all human beings will be swept into the torrent. It will be chaotic downward shift.

Economists will calmly tell you that high oil prices will dampen demand, and thus prices will not rise any more. Wrong. Oil right now is cheap. Wait until exporters decide to keep the oil for themselves, to run their own countries with their remaining reserves. The voracious race to buy cars and build houses and malls and to run suburbia and the world (with all its festivals and world cups) is not concerned with oil prices, they're concerned with making money. To make money they have an immediate individual focus on meeting deadlines, finishing projects. There is no global view. There is no community consciousness. Bad weather? Who cares. Howz my bottom line? Demand is already powering far, far in advance of the supply curve...even if just the demand for motor vehicles.

Right now oil is cheap. Did I say that already? I'm repeating it here again because some aren't getting the obvious. Oil is cheap. We drive out the stuff to go to gym or a convenience store 3km away. In time, we will be accused of squandering...we'll be indicted by our children for our reckless greed. What were you doing? Our excuse will be that 'everyone was doing it', that it was a lifestyle, that we were distracted, and people were contradicting each other. If that's going to be your excuse, read this website. It's clear. The signal is consistent.

Peak Everything really means that stock exchanges will never again surpass peaks reached roundabout now/recently. There will be small crashes and corrections, and then more carnage, with an overall downward bloodletting. Stagflation is a scenario with slow economic growth (soon to become a permament recession) and relatively high unemployment, coupled with high prices. The reason we face this is because of low capacity in virtually every sector worldwide. The financial system that we have based all the wealth of the world will collapse. It always was going to, what with the system of interest rates and it's inflationary effect. On a more basic level, the collapse we face is due to the everyday demands of a large human population on Earth, where each human organism expects to have their own car, house and appliances, consumes goods with exdpensive packaging transported sometimes thousands of miles by container ships.

The WWF estimates that we currently consume the equivalent of 1.4 planets. If that doesn't make sense, the fossil fuels we're using are 'stored energy'. It's like using up a credit card when you have no money in the bank. You just can't keep on doing this. Take away our fuel inheritance and we're short of half a planet for 7 billion voracious predators/consumers to run our shopping malls, suburbia and everything else.

Power supply is a problem worldwide, from Pakistan to Britian, from China to South Africa. High food prices are affecting everyone, not only because of higher fuel price inputs, but because of climate change and pollution as well. The poor will suffer, and increase in number. Crime and unemployment will increase.

In the future we will need to become farmers, and become a community again. Computers and the internet can keep our communication and inefficiencies down. We will live more locally and the world will become a lot larger. Superstores will become extinct. Airlines will fall out of the sky. Trains will become big, so too streetcars. You will be restricted at the market to what can be grown or made locally. Life will be about what is essential, addressing fairly basic our needs on a large scale, not so much about convenience or what we 'want'

But the emphasis should be on this kindset: a permanent decline. A permament contraction. A strong likelihood of war, and a nuclear exchange as resource depletion begins to bite on a planetwide scale. This is not the distant future, it's now. It's happening.

Do you expect petrol prices to come down again after a few months? Then clearly you still have not heard or understood a word being spoken or written. You have no idea how serious our collective situation. Wake up!

Peak Everything: Waking Up to the Century of Declines