During the recent financial crisis, crude production overhang was 138 million barrels. Now, the overhang is twice that, at 383 million barrels among the OECD, Cohen said.
For those reasons and several others, analysts believe oil's price gains are likely to be muted through the end of the year after nearly doubling since mid-February. Bank of America-Merrill Lynch only sees the commodity hitting $53 per barrel by year's end, while Capital Economics doesn't expect a breakout above $50 at all in 2016. Last week, Brent crude ended trading under $47.
Other points of concern contributing to Barclays' bearish view are fragile global growth, and Chinese overproduction.
"Once the [Chinese] government believes they have filled them sufficiently, then that excess inventory and that excess demand for inventory building will lead to extra weight on the market," Cohen said.
With all this in play, Cohen thinks oil prices will go further down in the third quarter of this year before staging a rebound around the fourth quarter of 2017.
"Things on the supply and demand side don't happen overnight. It's going to take time for shale to be producing at a level rate rather than declining," Cohen said. "When the market starts to pay attention to that reality, that we need shale to begin to grow again, then we should see prices move higher."