Petroleum Price Trends: Drivers and Economic Consequences

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to analyze the current energy crisis. Contrary to the scenarios focusing on renewable energies, will oil still supply most of the energy demand? We will also discuss the causes of the current sharp rise in oil prices? Is this a temporary economic phenomenon or the start of a cycle of sustainable increase in energy prices? Is this, as many fear, the harbinger of a new and big oil shock, which would be caused by the imbalance in the rates of development of supply and demand? These questions and fears are all the more legitimate since the oil market has been in turmoil in recent years. The factors that caused prices to soar to higher levels have not, for the most part, disappeared. These factors concern both the global geopolitical context and the mechanical game of the market. The soaring of classes even accelerated with the Arab Spring.