Growing global demand for oil will push prices to $125 a barrel sometime next year and possibly to $180 by the end of the decade, according to a Barclays research report Thursday.
While domestic oil production has increased with the discovery of new ways to extract oil from shale and other tight formations, the decline in new production from existing fields internationally will continue to drive up prices, according to Barclays.
Production is declining each year by close to four million barrels per day, while annual global demand is rising by more than one million barrels per day, even in the weak economic environment. Political tensions in the Middle East could disrupt supplies further, worsening the shortfall in the coming years.So, those are the data points:
- lousy global economic environment
- annual global oil demand rising by one million bopd
- annual global oil production decreasing by four million bopd
- unrest in the Middle East is a footnote; will it become a story?
If either the first or the last data point changes ....
