[dolanbaker]

I'm going out on a limb by saying that the price at the start of the year will be the lowest and would like to change my low to $36

[vtsnowedin]

That might work out for you. I'm thinking that warm weather in the East from El Ninio will save on heating oil and drive prices a little lower before things turn around.

[PeakOiler]

I came across this Reuter's "opinion" article predicting that oil will "blow past $80/barrel in 2016":

Reuters Article

The next big move in the price of oil will be up. For now, OPEC producers are flooding the market with cheap crude. But low-cost OPEC producers will win the hydrocarbon price war because they can fight harder for longer. And when they win, the price of oil will rise.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) expects shale oil production in the United States to shrink by more than 600,000 barrels per day next year if current low oil prices persist. At that rate, daily U.S. shale production would soon fall below 5 million barrels per day.

Lower prices will accelerate shutdowns in areas like the North Sea too. Energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie reckons that over a third of the area’s 330 fields could be threatened by early closure if prices remain below $85 per barrel for an extended period.

Like shale, the North Sea was once seen as a serious rival to OPEC’s cheap oil but now it looks like its first victim. Wood Mackenzie reckons that at least 1.5 million barrels of daily global production are uneconomic at $40. Those volumes make up no more than a couple of percent of supply. But the global oil market is finely balanced. Small changes can lead to big shifts.

As more high-cost production is either shut down or slowed down, OPEC’s pricing power will come to the fore. The IEA says oil prices will swill around the bottom of the barrel until 2018. If demand for oil rises with a global economic growth spurt – fuelled perhaps by the low cost of energy – the oil prices will move up sooner than that.

The precise price to be seen at any moment in 2016 is unpredictable. But elemental oil market forces suggest that a barrel of black stuff will revert back towards its 10-year mean above $80.

[Pops]

Hmmm, this is a tough year
EIA says US down 1.1 total next year
KSA is up 1.5 Iraq another half
Iran may add up to a million, surely a half mil by March
Iraq has grown lots but that's slowing
Bakken export does something, don't know what
baseline production falls slightly

China's industrial profits were down $100 billion in '15 but they haven't tanked, demand is still growing somewhat
IEA predicts slower US growth than this year (2.2mbd 3qtr)
but still up globally 1.2mbd

The US economy is so goofy even the people on Bloomberg this morning look a little dazed when offering forecasts lol


So I'm gonna backpedal a little and say the glut persist all year but builds slow.

so POer if you would revise my guess please


Low 28
high 48
close 48
avg 38

[PeakOiler]

...so POer if you would revise my guess please


Low 28
high 48
close 48
avg 38

Done.

Yeah, I like to post some of these other predictions, and in a year, check back in this thread to see how they did. I don't necessarily agree with the prediction given in the Reuters article above, as you can see in the last scorecard I posted. I think it's going to take longer to get above $80, but we'll see. That's what is fun about this game: the unpredictability of competing market forces.

[Subjectivist]

...so POer if you would revise my guess please


Low 28
high 48
close 48
avg 38

Done.

Yeah, I like to post some of these other predictions, and in a year, check back in this thread to see how they did. I don't necessarily agree with the prediction given in the Reuters article above, as you can see in the last scorecard I posted. I think it's going to take longer to get above $80, but we'll see. That's what is fun about this game: the unpredictability of competing market forces.

I think it would be interesting if you would put the EIA, Goldman Sachs, The IEA, OPEC and any other widely published predictions in the chart so we can judge ourselves against the "experts".

[PeakOiler]

I think it would be interesting if you would put the EIA, Goldman Sachs, The IEA, OPEC and any other widely published predictions in the chart so we can judge ourselves against the "experts".

Yes it would be interesting, but the problem is most of these agencies don't forecast but an average price estimate for the year. I have asked our forum players to post articles that may give estimates from other entities if they find such articles, but that hasn't happened too often.

In the 2015 po.com Oil Price Challenge, I added a Goldman Sachs estimate (GS) that was given in mid-summer 2014 iirc, (check that thread), but a lot changed by the end of the year and I never saw another GS estimate after that for 2015 prices.

Here's an example: The EIA's estimates in their STEO https://www.eia.gov/forecasts/steo/report/prices.cfm says:

WTI futures contracts for March 2016 delivery, traded during the five-day period ending December 3, averaged $44/b, while implied volatility averaged 42%. These levels established the lower and upper limits of the 95% confidence interval for the market's expectations of monthly average WTI prices in March 2016 at $30/b and $63/b, respectively. The 95% confidence interval for market expectations widens over time, with lower and upper limits of $26/b and $90/b for prices in December 2016.

Note that these estimates are for Futures prices which is what our previous games used. In the 2016 Oil Price Challenge, we are going to use Spot prices. (Apples to oranges?)

[vtsnowedin]

I'd read that as low 26 high 90 and average 58 and stick that in as EIA's unofficial guess just for comparisons sake. They are like weathermen and stick in chance of flurries into every forecast so they can't be pinned down as wrong.

[Tanada]

This link is the EIA chart for 2011-2016 average prices,
http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/steo/table ... tcode=2016

Here is a news report about Goldman Sachs forecast for 2016,

The bank now assumes that a barrel of West Texas Intermediate, the dominant North American oil blend, will average $45 through next year — down from $57 a barrel the last time the bank had a forecast.

There's an outside chance the price could fall even lower because "while not our base case, the potential for oil prices to fall to such levels, which we estimate near $20 a barrel, is becoming greater as storage continues to fill," the bank said.

I would say the GS forecast is 57 high, 45 average, 20 low but that is just my interpretation of the above paragraphs.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/goldman ... -1.3223993

Here is the link for OPEC's December 2015 report, it is a pdf as a flip book,

http://www.opec.org/opec_web/flipbook/M ... 015.html#1

[PeakOiler]

...I would say the GS forecast is 57 high, 45 average, 20 low but that is just my interpretation of the above paragraphs.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/goldman ... -1.3223993

Here is the link for OPEC's December 2015 report, it is a pdf as a flip book,

http://www.opec.org/opec_web/flipbook/M ... 015.html#1

Thanks for those links, Tanada. Again, our game includes estimating a closing price too, so we still can't really include these entities in our game. But strictly for comparison purposes, it will be interesting to see how their projections will pan out.

Are you going to play this year,Tanada?

The deadline to play is next Wednesday, or whenever the EIA releases their first 2016 report.

[Tanada]

...I would say the GS forecast is 57 high, 45 average, 20 low but that is just my interpretation of the above paragraphs.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/goldman ... -1.3223993

Here is the link for OPEC's December 2015 report, it is a pdf as a flip book,

http://www.opec.org/opec_web/flipbook/M ... 015.html#1

Thanks for those links, Tanada. Again, our game includes estimating a closing price too, so we still can't really include these entities in our game. But strictly for comparison purposes, it will be interesting to see how their projections will pan out.

Are you going to play this year,Tanada?

The deadline to play is next Wednesday, or whenever the EIA releases their first 2016 report.

If I was any good at predicting numbers for the future I would win the Lotto lol!

[Plantagenet]

I think I've done this game before but I'm not on the spreadsheet.

Please put me down for

HIGH 76.57
LOW 30.00
CLOSE 70.29

Thanks!

--Plantagenet

Hi Plantagenet. Welcome back to the game. Please make a guess of the average price too. Thanks!

Please put me down for an average of 44. Thx.

[salinsky]

I've been hanging in second place most of the past year, but with this new year, I feel a great deal of uncertainty. One wonders why there are not more contestants, there is no need to feel embarrassment if one does poorly. I've been waiting for SteinarN to show his hand, but expect he'll wait until the last day.
Here's my guesses:
High: $51.50 Low: $26.50 Close: 49.50 Avg: 41.50

SAL

[PeakOiler]

I've been hanging in second place most of the past year, but with this new year, I feel a great deal of uncertainty. One wonders why there are not more contestants, there is no need to feel embarrassment if one does poorly. I've been waiting for SteinarN to show his hand, but expect he'll wait until the last day.
Here's my guesses:
High: $51.50 Low: $26.50 Close: 49.50 Avg: 41.50

SAL

Hi salinski. Welcome back to the game. Yeah, I wonder why more people won't play the game either. After all, it is just a game. No cost to play! And as pupp55 once pointed out, the reward is respect (to a certain degree), even though luck has a lot to do with the final results imo.

SteinarN is maximizing his chances! lol

I think a couple of players low guesses are too high already. They need to change those numbers before the deadline next week! (e.g.: GoghGoner, and Observerbrb)

[farmlad]

High - 76, low- 26, close - 37, ave- 42 Thanks

[GoghGoner]

I've already lost? Haha. Low price of $34.

[Outcast_Searcher]

High 50
Low 15
Close 35

Average 30


I'm looking for the status quo (with a nasty wash-out at some point) while we wait for the KSA to decide they've done enough destruction to the expensive oil producers. Clearly, I'm guessing the KSA won't pull back on production enough to matter in 2016.

Given my track record in these little contests, this prediction is bound to be completely wrong.

[AutomaticEarth]

I'd like to change my numbers to the following:-

High - 77
Low - 30
Close - 60
Average - 45

Thanks and sorry for the additional work.

[PeakOiler]

I'd like to change my numbers to the following:-

High - 77
Low - 30
Close - 60
Average - 45

Thanks and sorry for the additional work.

Not a problem. Updated.