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Soaring oil prices have preceded every major crisis in the world economy since the 1970s. The period of price rises in 2011-2014 delayed the exit of the global crisis after the global financial crisis. Thus, a 45% increase in reference prices within five months would generally be alarming.
But the steady rise in oil since last December – fueled by cuts in Opec production, the conflict in Libya and US sanctions against Venezuela and Iran – has not disrupted markets: global equities are re-keyed as fears of recession subsided.
Last week, Donald Trump's threat to block Iran's latest exports briefly helped push the Brent oil price above $ 75 a barrel for the first time since last October, although he pulled back Friday after the US president claimed to have extorted promises from Saudi Arabia. other producers to increase their stocks.
Despite the turmoil last week, US equities have reached new highs and the currency markets have been calm.
According to the economist, there are two main reasons for the apparent lack of concern. First of all, some argue that recent price gains have been motivated as much by a recovery in global oil demand as by supply disruptions. If this is the case, the oil-consuming economies should be strong enough to cope with higher prices.
"Consumers can bear a modest burden. Labor markets are doing well on both sides of the Atlantic. Credit conditions remain favorable, "said Kallum Pickering, economist at Berenberg.
Secondly, many energy economists say that the transformation of the oil market since 2010, with lower production costs and the rapid growth of American shale production, means that future shocks to the supply will be less important and of shorter duration.
"[There] should be a very big shock. . . a long and sustained reduction of the main producers, to see a [price] as we have already seen, "said Nick Butler, visiting professor at King's College London.
He argued that the cuts made by exporters such as Iran and Venezuela could be quickly replaced by American shale oil, or by Russia or the OPEC states that have struggled to diversify their economies and are desperate to generate income.
Just five years ago, removing a major producer like Venezuela from the market would have pushed prices above $ 100, but the impact is now limited, said Professor Butler. If oil prices stabilized around $ 70 a barrel, they would be in real terms 50% lower than they were five years ago and barely unchanged from 40 years ago. he added.
But some badysts believe that an oil shock, even if it is less damaging than in the past, could pose a threat to the fragile global expansion.
Jason Bordoff, a professor at Columbia University who advised the Obama administration on energy, said prices could be higher and more volatile in the long run. American shale production would not grow fast enough to absorb the new demand indefinitely, and shale companies could not be relied on to increase production when prices increased, he said.
They needed six to twelve months to scale up their operations and, with the replacement of smaller producers by well-established oil groups, they would be better able to absorb temporary price fluctuations and less likely to bear the costs of reduction.
Analysts at Oxford Economics, the consulting firm, believe that there is a risk of more immediate increase, if this is short-term, stating that it would only take 39; an "additional supply shock", such as unrest in the Delta region, Nigeria, to push prices above $ 100. a barrel this year.
They estimate that this would leave global growth below 0.6% by the end of 2020 and lead to the largest increase in global inflation since 2011.
However, the overall impact and trend of winners and losers as a result of a change in the price of oil has changed significantly over the past decade.
Oil producers, whose public finances were tense as a result of lower prices in 2014, were now more likely to spend additional budgetary revenues, thus mitigating the impact of price fluctuations on global demand.
The euro area is likely to be less vulnerable. Consumption and production have become less intensive in oil, with growth increasingly driven by services, and labor markets are in better shape. The European Central Bank said last September that a stable price of 75 dollars a barrel would have little impact on real incomes or consumption.
The biggest losers would be the emerging oil importing economies. With a barrel of oil at 100 dollars, Turkey and Argentina would lose nearly 1% of their GDP, according to Oxford Economics.
Growth in China and India would be similar, he added. An oil-induced downturn in these countries would be much more damaging now than in the past, as they are more integrated into the global economy than ever before.
But the most important change of the last decade has been the link between oil prices and US growth.
American interests were once clear: a rise in gas prices quickly affected GDP through its effects on consumers.
The oil crisis of 2014 could have added about 1 percentage point to the growth of production. However, research published by the Brookings Institution has shown that net stimulus measures were close to zero, as gains for consumers were offset by a dramatic decline in oil sector investment.
Gasoline prices remain a big problem in an election year, but as the US is on the verge of becoming a net exporter, politicians must now weigh consumer interests against those of oil producers and their peers. workers.
"The political costs are higher than the economic costs," said Andreas Economou, of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, stressing that the interests of consumption and oil production [US] states diverged, "consumers dominate in the rotating states that any candidate would like to obtain".
"The reality is that a higher oil price is not necessarily bad. . . if your concern is about the health of the US economy rather than consumers, "said Professor Bordoff. "This reality is not yet fully understood in Washington."
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