Oil Price Spike Inevitable -- Oilprice.com -- August 31, 2016

I haven't read the article yet, but the headline suggests what I have suggested for quite some time: oil price spike is inevitable. New discoveries hit seventy-year low. US onshore shale cannot possible replace deep-sea elephant fields. Mideast is (relatively) tapped out.

This is from oilprice.com yesterday, sent to me by a reader, thank you very much. 

This is the timeframe I'm looking at:

• from now (mid-2016) to 2Q17: WTI pricing volatile; could it go below $40? Possibly, but I doubt it
• summer 2017: the market will telegraph whether the inevitable spike occurs in 2018 or later
• summer 2018: first suggestions of a spike, which could result in significantly high prices very quickly; spike to me is defined as around $100; if not in 2018, then 2019. 

If price remains in the $50 range for another full year (end of 2017), Saudi Arabia is in deep trouble.

If price remains in the $50 range for two more years (end of 2018), Saudi Arabia is toast. 

The US shale operating sector will look a whole lot different if the price remains in the $50 range for the next two years, but the US shale industry is not going away.