Oil's Recovery Could Take Decades, Not Years
Or the industry might never fully rebound from the virus, leaving massive spare capacity all along the supply chain.
Where to keep it all?
Photographer: David McNew/Getty Images
Who knows what the new normal for oil demand will be once Covid-19 is firmly in the rear view mirror? Not me, that's for sure. But it is likely to be lower than it was in 2019, and it could be that way for many years. That’s going to create overcapacity throughout the oil supply chain and weigh on prices.
While signs are emerging that we might have passed the worst of this historic oil demand rout, they’re very tentative. No one is predicting a swift recovery to where we were before the pandemic struck. Some, including Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s chief executive officer, Ben van Beurden, suggest that oil demand may never recover fully.