Think energy markets are getting back to normal? After all, prices have been relatively stable, production is growing at a healthy rate, and infrastructure bottlenecks are front and center again. Just like the good ol’ days, right? Absolutely not. It’s a whole new energy world out there, with unexpected twists and turns around every corner — everything from regional hostilities, renewables subsidies, disruptions at shipping pinch points, pipeline capacity shortfalls and all sorts of other quirky variables. There’s just no way to predict what is going to happen next, right? Nah. All we need to do is stick our collective RBN necks out one more time, peer into our crystal ball, and see what 2024 has in store for us.
We’ve been in this prognostications business for 12 years now, and it’s not getting any easier. But even with the unpredictability that’s now an expected feature of energy markets, we have maintained our long-standing tradition of not only predicting what will happen in the year ahead, but also looking back to see how we did with our predictions for the previous year. Yes, we check our work! We generally did OK last year, and you can judge for yourself in our 2023 Prognostications scorecard that was posted yesterday.
2024 — Year of the Dragon
Way back in 2013, when we first delved into the mysterious art of energy market prognostication, we needed all the help we could get. So we sought guidance from the Chinese zodiac, which turned out to be a highly valued means of assessing the future. For example, 2015 was the Year of the Goat — oil was definitely the goat that year after the Shale Era’s initial oil price crash. And 2018 was the Year of the Dog, prompting us to wonder, “Who let the dogs out?” Greed seemed palpable in 2019’s Year of the Pig. And naturally, 2020 was the Year of the Rat, 2021 the Year of the Ox, 2022 the Year of the Tiger, and 2023 the Year of the Rabbit — with those wascally wabbits being zany, tricksome, even a bit emotionally unstable. That sure sounds familiar.
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