According to Axel van Trotsenburg, Vice President of the World Bank, low oil prices are going to have a positive impact on the global economy in the long run. He expressed such ha standpoint of his within the scope of he interview given to The Financial Times.
The Vice President of the World Bank is convinced that the means that can be saved at the expense of ultra-low oil prices can be redirected to back and finance multiple infrastructural projects and to resolve many social problems.
Apparently, low oil prices have been undermining the economic stability of several countries worldwide, including Russia, Iran and other major oil producers and exporters.However, the overall global economy is definitely going to benefit from this phenomenon, he assumes. This is because most countries around the globe are oil importers. Therefore, lower prices are beneficial for them.
Oil Price Predictions 2015
According to Barclays Capital, a barrel of Brent oil is expected to cost 43 and 40 dollars in the 1st and 2nd quarter of 2015 respectively. At the same time, the analysts expect the prices to start recovering up to $44-48/b in the second half of the year.
At the same time, they predict that oil prices are not going to start a major recovery until 2016. Next year’s oil prices are expected to go up to $60/b on average.
At the same time, the Secretary General of the OPEC assumes that oil prices may well skyrocket to $200/b in the longer-term future provided that major oil exporters stop investing in their oil industries and cutting the global oil supply drastically, which is eventually going to result in extreme shortage of crude oil worldwide, thereby pushing the prices to new all-time highs over and over again.
