June 28, 2019
WRONG WAY! — A barrel of OPEC oil is down about $9 or 12 percent in the past month, despite some shocks that one would expect to drive up the price. The daily chart above shows the dates of attacks on tankers in the region and the shootdown of an American drone. All those events would normally send the price of oil skyrocketing. But that hasn’t happened. More important has been the economic slowdown in China and the continuing high stocks of crude hanging over the market (largely due to high American production). The limp prices come as Iranian petroleum exports fell further, from about 810,000 bpd in April to 480,000 bpd in May, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), and were running at only 300,000 bpd in the first half of June, according to Reuters. That is only 12 percent of what Iran exported before President Trump re-imposed US sanctions last year.
