Date: 2024-07-17 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00021292
US Economy
Crude Oil Prices
EIA ... Europe Brent Spot Price (FOB) ... 1987-2021
Original article: https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/PET_PRI_SPT_S1_D.htm
Burgess COMMENTARY
This time series shows how crude oil prices have fluctuated in the period from 1993 to 2021, with the 2021 price substantially higher than the 1993 price.
What is missing from this time series is the price increase that took place in the 20 years from the early 1970s to 1993. Prior to 1973 the price of crude oil was aroung $3.50 a barrel. After the oil shock orchestrated by OPEC, the price of a barrel of crude oil increased to around $13.50 a barrel.
Later in the 1970s the price of crude oil surged to around $30.00 a barrel.
During the 1980s and the 1990s the crude oil price remained fairly steady at a little under the $30.00 level. There was a spike in the price in 1990 when Iraq invaded Kuwait and much of the world mobilized to push Iraq out of Kuwait in the First Gulf War during the administration of President Bush (41)
In the early 2000s, during the administration of President Bush (43), the price of crude oil increased from $29.59 in January 2001 (WTI) to a high of $125.40 in May 2008 with a subsequent rapid decline (crash) to $41.12 in December 2008
During the Obama administration there was a strong crude oil price recovery reaching $109.53 in May 2013. The price stayed around $100.00 a barrel until July 2014 after which there was a rapid decline in prices.
The 2014-16 collapse in oil prices from $103.59 in July 2014 to $47.22 in January 2015 was driven by a supply glut caused by the success of 'fracking' in the USA. The strong general economy in the USA during the later Obama years helped crude prices recover a bit reaching $51.97 in December 2016.
During the Trump administration, prices strengthened as the supply demand balance improved reaching around $70.00 a barrel ($70.98 in July 2018) This supply demand balance was massively disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic and in April 2020 the price had dropped to just $16.55 a barrel.
In late 2021 there is now a lot of talk about inflation including energy cost inflation. The crude spot price (WTI) reached $81.48 in October 2021 ... high relative to the Obama and Trump years, but around the same price as July 2008 towards the end of the Bush (43) administration.
Peter Burgess