While crude oil prices slumped to a five-year low Friday amid sluggish demand and mushrooming supply, iconic oil investor T. Boone Pickens, CEO of BP Capital Management, doesn't expect oil to stay down for long.
January WTI crude futures settled at $67.38 a barrel Wednesday on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after hitting a nadir of $63.72 Friday. Prices have plummeted 37 percent since June 20.
Oil's collapse Friday came after OPEC refrained from taking any action to boost prices at its meeting last week. "They didn't say they wouldn't cut, but OPEC will have to cut, and that is what's going to happen," Pickens told CNBC.
"The Saudis are the ones that make the cut. They can take $70 oil out 10 years. They have the cash reserves that allow them to do that, but they can't do that to the rest of OPEC."
Pickens predicted crude will rebound to $100 in 12 to 18 months. That would represent a 48 percent surge from Wednesday's Nymex settlement.
But Campbell Harvey, professor of international business at Duke University's Business School, sees things a bit differently.
"The power of OPEC is just exaggerated like crazy," he told Newsmax TV.
"It is true that they have low-cost oil production, and they do have substantial reserves, but the world is a completely different place" than during OPEC's heyday, Harvey says.
U.S. oil production has soared, he notes. And on the demand side, Europe is headed toward recession, Japan is already in one and China's economic growth is slowing.
Related Articles:
© 2025 Newsmax Finance. All rights reserved.