Oil Prices: The Complete Q&A

(Daily Telegraph)



At around $130 a barrel, the price has roughly doubled in the past 12 months, making life much tougher for consumers across the world. Oil and gas companies such as BP and Royal Dutch Shell have faced fierce criticism as they rack up profits.

The International Energy Agency has warned that oil is a commodity “under stress” and expects oil prices to continue to climb because there is a fundamental shortage of supply. With demand from India and China expected to rise in coming years, the IEA expects a supply “crunch” to arrive by 2015.

Harry Tchilinguirian, a senior oil analyst at investment bank BNP Paribas in London, explains how oil is traded, who buys oil, why the oil price is spiking and how high oil may go. While Paul Mortimer Lee, global head of market economics at BNP, and strategist Dominic Bryant explains why the oil price matters to us all.

• Who are the winners and losers?
• Who consumes all the oil?
• Why is the oil price spiking now?
• Where is the oil price going?
• Is there really a shortage of supply?
• What are oil futures and how are they traded?
• Alan Duncan: Asking Opec to solve the oil crisis misses the burning point
• Liam Halligan: $100-plus oil will be here for years as China motors ahead
• Louise Armitstead: Slick investors strike riches as they cash in on peak oil
• Mark Kleinman: Credit crisis was crude compared with this oil price surge
• Dan Roberts: Cheap oil is history. But why?