CHALHOUB CONSULTING: February 2020

Monday, February 24, 2020

Some motivations for a prolonged low oil prices environment

From the Corona virus to tensions between the U.S. and Iran so far, the year 2020 has been filled with uncertainties for the global oil market. A recent production cut by OPEC in conjunction with the Russia Federation has failed to impact prices and the outlook for the market remains bearish according to the opinion of diverse experts and that could end depending on the outcomes of an upcoming meeting of the organisation already clouded by uncertainties on the spread of coronavirus and its impact on global demand, which has been differently assessed and viewed by player such as Saudi Arabia and Russia.

In this regard, the price of Western Texas Intermediate stands at $55 down, representing a considerable crash of around 50 dollars compared to prices of $100 in 2014 and despite many geopolitical risks and the wishes of OPEC producers, overall global oil production has continued to grow this year and will likely continue to grow. Indeed the U.S. Energy Information Agency predicts that global oil production will rise from roughly 100 of barrels per day (bpd) to nearly 10.2 million bpd by the end of the year. https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/global_oil.php.

Therefore in this logic, this oil glut has been driven by the continued growth of U.S. shale production. Indeed continuing production across the U.S. has helped soften the impact of a number of geopolitical risk factors including ongoing wars in Iraq and Libya as well as tension between Iran and the U.S.

The price could remain low for a long time because there’s more than enough production in global oil markets, but where the wild card remains China where the deadly Corona virus has already killed over 2,000 people and may have significant impact in the long term and where it’s important to stress that China surpassed the United States as the world’s largest energy importer in 2017 and many believe the current health crisis there could become an economic one with important consequences for its oil demand.

While OPEC continues with its cut deal with non OPEC producing nations especially led by Russia, overall global oil production has grown from around 2 millions of barrels per day (bpd) to over totalling over 11 millions bpd by the end of 2019. This has been driven by continued U.S. shale production.

In this regard, low oil prices will benefit oil-importing economies and their consumers especially China, India, and other fast developing economies with sustained increasing demand and that leverage on this landscape to grow its strategic reserves and in the long run reflected also in the prices of fuel and gasoline this including the case of the U.S, but remains to be determined the real impact on the demand for China amid the unfolding of the corona virus. About this. Alex Kimani in OilPrice.com states: “The China coronavirus outbreak and continued inventory builds in the US market have been depressing prices”

Regarding the dynamics of US shale oil production, in the case of the continuation of low oil prices, the growth of U.S.production is expected to slow down in 2020 due to the fall of crude oil prices. The currently suppressed price environment, which is not expected to disappear anytime soon, makes it more difficult for completion rate of oil wells to achieve previously expected recovery after completion rate of oil wells saw deep monthly declines in the last two months of 2019. On this, S&P Global Platts Oil reported “ total US oil and gas rig counts were down a net five last week to 825 amid continued low commodity prices and restrained capital outlays throughout domestic basins”.

Henceforth, its still uncertain what outlook will be for oil prices and which countries will be winners and losers out of this global quest for oil dominance and preponderance and market share, with a rise of the development of renewable resources and the use of EV all across the globe, with the traditional oil producing powers struggling to maintain their hegemony over the energy landscape

Tuesday, February 18, 2020

Globalisation and Power Shifts

The dynamics of globalisation have been a key influencer in the gradual power shifts of the global order, specifically in the period of study, after the end of the Cold War and the fall of the USSR in 1990 and all through 2015, a time lapse marked by fast paced technological advances in communications, finance, global financial turmoil, armed conflicts in countries such as Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, the Arab Spring, the expansion of growth in the asian continent, especially China and India, and in general the gradual and sustained diffusion of power to other poles enhanced importantly by this globalisation process, and inserted in a mixed way in the theories studied in this module, such as that of the Imperial Overstretch, the Hegemonic Stability Theory and Long Cycle Theory, impacting importantly particularly the longstanding role of the U.S. as the sole superpower after the end of the Cold War in its confrontation against the former Soviet Union.

In this sense, and as with the fast diffusion of ideas, interactions and communications in diverse fields especially regarding the state of the global order across regions and continents, and the fast flow of money and the spread and globalisation of threats and problems, based on some sense of exhaustion of the concept of Pax Americana, the gradual rise of China experiencing important year on year rates of growth along with other countries in Asia in what was called the East Asian Miracle, the once unipolar order of the world unfolded in once with diverse poles of power contesting the weight and prominence of the U.S. after the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union. Regarding the concept of Pax Americana:

“ It specifically denotes the United States’s post war military and economic position relative to other nations” (M4 U3 LSE & Get Smarter, 2018:4), which highlights the role and weight of the U.S in contrast with other countries and regions of the world.

Therefore, during this period, and mostly both as a challenge to the role and preeminence of the United States and the West and also as a consequence of the signs of imperial overstretch after different mistakes and quagmires experienced by Washington in past armed interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan, resulting in loss of human lives and high costs for the taxpayers in the U.S. resulting in a mounting antiwar sentiment and a loss of trust in the political system in the country, there were other countries such as China building its own strategy to assert its influence not only in Asia but in the rest of the world.

Based on this argument, China , leveraging on a significant rate of sustained growth in the last decade, market oriented reforms under a strong political control by the Communist Party and an aggressive expansion overseas of its state backed companies, went on decidedly to fill some voids being left by the U.S and the EU especially in regions such as Central Asia, the Pacific, Africa to design a geopolitical strategy through strong commercial methods such as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank (AIIB), the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) along with Russia. As Khana, 2019 writes:

“ In the past few years, China has surpassed the United States as the world’s largest economy (in PPP terms) and trading power. Asia’s major powers have maintained stability with one another despite their historical tensions. They have formed common institutions such as the Asian Development Bank, the East Asian Community, Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and the AIIB. A quarter century after the US won the Cold War and led the Asian order, it is now excluded from nearly all of these bodies”. This indicates how the position of the U.S. from a preeminence in Asia after the Cold War now shifted to one of predominance and influence of China specifically in Asia.

In conclusion, during the period of time from 1990 to 2015, it is clear that there has been a shift of the balance of power globally one caused by an exhaustion, mistakes and an overstretch of an empire which is the United States to other centres of power such as China, India, the EU, without this meaning that the U.S. has lost its relevance in the global system, still being the main financial centre and holding the main global currency such as the dollar and the largest military forces, meanwhile even if now China has become the main challenger and the other top relevant centre of power in the global shift in the making.

All this as we still will have to consider diverse domestic and regional geopolitical, economic and social challenges lying ahead of its intentions along with other poles such as the EU and India or Russia, as we are witnessing an ever growing interconnected and globalised world where, at the end of the day, unipolarity no longer will seem enough to tackle the most pressing issues impacting the world today and where, even the relevance and effectiveness of the long established blocs of cooperation and integration regional, international or continental, have been being constantly challenged with new ways of integration now backed and sponsored by the new emergent powers such as China, Russia, Turkey, Indonesia, etc, underscoring the new landscape of power today.

Overall, the globalisation has been a key player in this dynamic of power shifting and diffusion from traditional poles to new ones, to the losing of relevance of regional and international blocs, and as the whole concept of power wielding has been changing and evolving importantly and fast, and where at the end, no single power has the strength and capabilities to deal with the diverse problems of the world and where interconnectedness, common actions of countries in multilateral mechanisms will continue to be the path despite continuing challenges and responses to the globalisation process.