Unveiling a new theory for projecting oil prices, a speaker at the recently concluded Oil Trading Risks Middle East and Africa Summit in Dubai said that he expected oil prices to move back in to the three-figure mark in 2015
Gavin Don, CEO of NewsBase, was speaking at the opening day of the summit, which gathered representatives from oil trading companies and oil consuming businesses.
Don’s theory does not use the demand/supply dynamic to determine oil prices but instead, looks at equilibria within sets of different prices. Based on this theory, he believed that oil price would breach the US$100 per barrel mark by the end of this year.
The presentation was followed by a panel discussion that looked at risk management in the Middle East and Africa. The panelists pointed to the lack of risk management knowledge, inability of the young financial sector to bear much risk and the low use of insurance as problem areas.
They also spoke positively of an increasing number of hedging instruments being available to companies as a positive development and said that companies in both the regions have started to develop better risk management cultures.
The continuing lull in oil prices set the tone for the summit and the workshop by Haroon Imtiaz of Hess Energy Trading Company who focussed on companies’ risk appetite, hedging protocol and risk infrastructure.
The summit was sponsored by ComFin, Wipro and Allegro and was also supported by the Arab-British Chamber of Commerce.
