It was another great day at the CFA Annual Conference here in Montreal. One of the highlights was listening to Amy Myers Jaffe, a lecturer at UC Davis and leading energy consultant, present the Trends in Global Energy Markets.
One of the themes of the conference is how technology is transforming many industries and the energy market is no exception. Amy claims technology will decouple the use of energy and economic growth. Even as countries grow, it does not necessarily mean they will use more energy.
Over the last decade, the advances in extracting oil from shale rock, slowing growth in China, and lower exploration costs have caused oil prices to plummet. She believes prices could remain low for the long term but weather and wars will cause occasional price spikes.
She believes non-U.S. producers of oil are left with two choices. They could slow the production of oil until much of the shale oil in the U.S. is gone and hope prices go higher. Or they could decide that prices will be permanently low and maintain
production now to gain as much market share as possible. Most foreign oil producers have chosen the latter including Saudi Arabia.
We have one more day to enjoy here before heading home. I still need to work on my French!
– Jason Gunkel, CFA, CFP®, CAP®