Big oil is sowing the seeds for a 'super-spike' in crude prices above $150, Bernstein warns

as mentioned in "The risk for the oil industry in reducing investment today, is creating a shortfall in oil supply tomorrow. "Any shortfall in supply will result in a super-spike in prices, potentially much larger than the US$150/bbl spike witnessed in 2008." Meanwhile, the amount of time that big oil companies' reserves will last has fallen by 30 percent since 2000. The producers that let their proven oil reserve life fall below 10 years "will struggle to grow production" without purchasing other oil companies, in Bernstein's view. The impact will be production declines and another super-cycle in oil prices," Bernstein analysts concluded.

Iran sanctions could soon push oil prices above $90 a barrel, BoAML says

President Donald Trump's sustained bid to disrupt Iran's petroleum exports could soon help to push oil prices above $90 a barrel, analysts told CNBC on Thursday. Crude futures were seen hovering close to multi-year highs during early afternoon deals, after a bigger-than-expected drop in U.S. stockpiles added to a rally fueled by a major Canadian supply outage, concerns about Libya's exports and efforts by the Trump administration to cut off funds from Iran. "We are in a very attractive oil price environment and our house view is that oil will hit $90 by the end of the second quarter of next year," Hootan Yazhari, head of frontier markets equity research at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, said. "We are moving into an environment where supply disruptions are visible all over the world… and of course President Trump has been pretty active in trying to isolate Iran and getting U.S. allies not to purchase oil from Iran," he added. International benchmark Brent crude traded at around $78.18 on Thursday, up around 0.7 percent while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) stood unchanged at $72.72.

Here's what to do with oil stocks and ETFs as oil prices crash

as informed in Please note the following from the chart:• The chart shows the recent oil breakout. • The chart shows the downgrade of oil by The Arora Report. The Arora Report ratings on oil and other indicators on oil are widely followed. • The chart shows oil fell below the support on heavy volume. Ask Arora: Nigam Arora answers your questions about investing in stocks, ETFs, bonds, gold and silver, oil and currencies.

Could oil prices spike above $150?

That's causing reserves at major producers to fall and the industry's reinvestment ratio to plunge to the lowest in a generation, paving the way for oil prices to surpass records reached last decade, according to Bernstein. RELATED: Oil prices slip, but it's likely just temporary"Investors who had egged on management teams to reign in capex and return cash will lament the underinvestment in the industry," the analysts wrote. The oversupply of crude globally in recent years has masked "chronic underinvestment," Bernstein said in the report. The producers aim now to pump more to help cool the market, but disruptions from Libya to Venezuela are keeping prices elevated. Proven reserves of the world's top oil companies have fallen by more than 30 percent on average since 2000, with only Exxon and BP showing an improvement, helped by acquisitions, Bernstein said.

collected by :Frank Ithan