March 20, 2016
CLIMBING — It’s now been five weeks that the daily price of an OPEC barrel has been moving upward. It has risen by a very impressive 58 percent from $22.48 on January 20 to $35.62 on Monday. In percentage terms, that is massive. But it’s hard to find many people who are terribly impressed. The International Energy Agency (EIA) says it believes the oil price has bottomed out and won’t be going down below $20. But it also says it doesn’t expect any recovery any time soon to a high price because, it says, the vast overstock of oil won’t clear until sometime in 2017.