With Oil Prices still at record lows, many are uncertain about what 2016 will hold as far as oil prices.
Oversupply was the word of choice for 2015 and it looks like 2016 will start off the same. With inventories in Cushing, OK at nearly, 88%. And production minimally slowing throughout most Oil exporting nations.
Crude is down off its previous close of $38/bbl to $36.88/bbl as of 8am this morning. OPEC did announce Wednesday that they could see a production cut by 2019 and expected crude to be $70/bbl by 2020.
Winter 2015 has been unseasonably warm for most of the Eastern US, and has caused Heating Oil and Propane demand to be lower than normal across much of the country.
Retail Gas Prices ended 2015 with a national average price of $2.026/gal and Ohio coming in at $1.780/gal, down .36/gal from a year ago and down $1.32/gal from 2 years ago.
If we learned anything over the past 2 years. It is that there is no way of predicting the future beyond 3 months. 2016 may see a rise in crude prices back above $60/bbl, or it could see them drop to $20/bbl. With inventories as high as they are and no production cuts on the near horizon, I expect the market to continue its decline through the Q1 2016.
