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Energy Insight: Prices: OPEC crude prices - 1989 to current (DSS13)

Energy Institute; 04/05/2023

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 18 reaching a peak in late 2018 of $ 80.02 for Saudi Light, $79.40 for Dubai and $ 82.40 for Bonny. by the end of that year though there was a significant drop in prices which stabilized around the $65 level through 2019.

The beginning of 2020 saw the arrival of the COVID 19 pandemic inspired crisis leading to a huge drop in demand, with the price os Saudi light dropping to $18.27 in April, around 72% down. Other traded OPEC crudes followed a similar pattern, as did Brent. But from May 2020 OPEC rpices started to gradually rise, with the average monthly for Arab Light reaching $49.24 by December2020.

2021 saw a continuous rise in prices to a high of over $82 in October as the world got back to normal after COVID, but then levelled off until Russia invaded Ukraine in Fenruary 2022. The markets reacted to push the average monthly price of Arab light to a high of 117.27 in June 2022. Since then the price has decreased and by January 2023 had reached $83.80 bbl, the lowest since January 2022.

Annual OPEC prices

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: Trading, Statistics, Crude oil, Oil and gas, Oil prices