Oil Markets: Surpluses, Shortages and the Struggle to Manage Them

摘要

When Oil Daily first appeared in late 1951,Saudi Arabian Light crude oil was selling at aposted Aramco price of just over $1.90 a barreland the US was producing just over 6 millionbarrels per day of oil, or about 50% of totalglobal supplies. The US was by far the largestconsumer and was already importing small vol-umes of oil. Today oil prices are more than 50times higher and the global oil market hasgrown more than six fold. The US is still theworld’s largest oil consumer and has long beenthe largest importer too, but those records looklikely to fall sooner or later to China.