From 1950 to 1972 the Saudi Arabian official selling price for crude oil was always below $3 a barrel, a level that did not change when OPEC was formed in 1960.
Following the first oil crisis of 1973, the state oil companies lost the ability to impose official selling prices. Since then the price of crude oil has fluctuated due to geopolitical and economic events, natural disasters and competition from other energy resources such as renewables and shale.
OPEC has often attempted to regulate the price of oil on the world markets by agreeing production quotas for each member country. However, they did not curb production between 2014 and mid-2016, when prices started to rise again. Prices continued to rise through 2017 and 2018 reaching a peak in late 2018 of $80.02 bbl for Saudi Light, $79.40 bbl for Dubai and $82.40 bbl for Bonny. By the end of that year though there was a significant drop in prices which stabilised around the $65 bbl level through 2019.
The beginning of 2020 saw the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis leading to a huge drop in demand, with the price of Saudi light dropping to $18.27 bbl in April, around 72% down. Other traded OPEC crudes followed a similar pattern, as did Brent. But from May 2020 OPEC prices started to gradually rise, with the average monthly for Arab Light reaching $49.24 bbl by December 2020.
2021 saw a continuous rise in prices to a high of over $82 bbl in October as the world got back to normal after COVID, but then levelled off until Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. The markets reacted to push the average monthly price of Arab light to a high of $117.27 bbl in June 2022. Since then the price has decreased and by December 2022 had reached $82.44 bbl, the lowest since January 2022.
Supply cuts by OPEC+ caused a surge in prices in July 2023 which further increased in September 2023 due to geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, before falling again due to demand concerns. Prices remained much lower in 2023 than 2022 with the average price of Saudi light being $84.97 bbl, Dubai being $82.05 bbl and Bonny being $83.52 bbl compared to $101.44 bbl, $95.75 bbl and $103.41 bbl respectively in 2022.
Energy Insight details
EI Datasheet 13.xlsx
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Physical description: Statistical datasheet, available to logged-in EI members and subscribers
Keywords:
Statistics
- Prices
Subjects:
Crude oil,
Trading,
Statistics,
Oil prices,
Oil and gas
