Crude Oil

The fossil fuels are extracted from proven reserves, the ones with supportive infrastructure and technologies, at the same time, such reserves can be found in undiscovered locations, where it may be recoverable in the future. Overall the global economy of fossils is complex, driven by a number of opaque factors and the prices are manipulated by a group of key producers, which includes the OPEC nations, and the nations that hold majority of large reserves like Russia and the US. The global demand for oil continues to grow each year, and it often leads to political unrest and geopolitical tensions.   

Crude often termed as ‘black gold’ is made up of hydrocarbon deposits and is used to produce - gasoline, diesel and a number of petrochemicals products. Economists believe before the supplies are completely exhausted, the researchers will develop alternatives to substitute it at a lower price. 

The growing tensions between the world’s largest economies US and China disrupted the global trade growth and oil demand in 2018 -2019.  This created worries in the global equity markets where the crude supply cuts from Latin America, the Middle East and Africa has already created a tightening. The OPEC nations had agreed to increase production to hold the price at $100 a barrel, and in the last months of 2018, the members decided to tightened supplies as a shale revolution in the US led to the production of record oil, more than biggest producers like Saudi Arabia and Russia in 2018. Further, the US had surprised OPEC by granting a waiver on eight countries to buy Iranian oil. Crude opens up a number of interesting investment opportunities that other vehicles don’t offer.