Part I of Analyzing the analysts looks at Wall Street’s ability to analyze oil, which is being called into question. In this second and final part of the series, EnergyTechStocks.com looks at the best and worst oil price forecasts of the past decade.
As investors desperately try to keep their portfolios afloat in the wake of the global energy crisis, knowing whose oil price forecast has stood the test of time is crucial.
An analysis by EnergyTechStocks.com of the best and worst oil price forecasts of the past decade indicates that one analyst whose forecasts command a great deal of attention – Dan Yergin of Cambridge Energy Research Associates – may have made the worst forecast, while an analyst who until recently was dismissed by the media and Wall Street for his supposedly ridiculous forecasts probably made the best. As the saying goes, past performance is no guarantee of future success. But for our money, Jeff Rubin of CIBC (TSX: T.CM, Stock Forum) in Canada is the analyst whose prognostications investors should follow religiously.
To appreciate how far off the mark Yergin was when he predicted in a Forbes magazine article in November 2004 that oil would cost only $38 a barrel in a year’s time, you have to read the full article. By 2004, the world was already in deep trouble, as the writer highlighted when he wrote that airlines were expected to lose billions, China’s oil appetite seemed insatiable, and the world had only a 1% short-term supply cushion. “Given these facts,” the article went on, “where will oil prices be a year from now – $75 a barrel? $100?”
Yergin himself had been highlighting those same difficulties, but he put his faith in the innovative prowess of the oil industry, arguing in the article that as more oil was recovered from oil sands, deepwater wells, and other non-traditional sources, oil prices would come down. In retrospect, Yergin seriously underestimated how much it would cost, and how long it would take, to get at these new sources. In fairness, Yergin couldn’t have foreseen the violent 2005 hurricane season. Nevertheless, the Forbes writer’s $75-to-$100 suggestion was closer to being right, as oil topped $65 a barrel in 2005 and stood at about $54 a barrel that November.
If more people had paid attention to Rubin’s April 2005 forecast, a lot of the current pain might have been avoided, because alternatives to oil, such as cellulosic biofuel and electric vehicles, would have gotten the push they needed before the crisis was full blown. Rubin forecast that, starting in 2007 and 2008, a significant global shortage of oil would begin to develop. That September, he forecast that crude oil would hit $100 a barrel by the fourth quarter of 2007. (He was right on the mark.) Where Yergin saw technological salvation, Rubin saw “an inevitable collision” between demand growth and supply constraints. One of Rubin’s greatest insights – one he shared with independent geologist Jeffrey Brown, whose work also was dismissed back then – was that OPEC’s call on its own oil would lead to cutbacks in the amount available for export.