COUNTER-REACTION — The recent drop in the price of an OPEC barrel may just be a correction for an irrational surge of the previous few months.Noe van Hulst, secretary general of the International Energy Forum, told Bloomberg news in an interview that the market has all the oil it needs and that fears the Libyan uprising would choke off supplies were grossly exaggerated.“The financial market always exaggerates the impact of any geopolitical unrest on the physical oil market even as supply disruptions were always minimal,” Van Hulst said.He said his Forum has looked at data for the last 55 years and found the physical oil market has lost only 0.3 percent of total global output because of supply disruptions.“This [55-year] period witnessed three wars in the [Persian] Gulf region and an attack on the Suez Canal. These are big events compared to what is happening in Libya.”The monthly chart (below) shows that prices now are back where they were in March.
