Noyce Conference Room
Seminar
US Mountain Time
Our campus is closed to the public for this event.
Kevin Allison (SFI Journalism Fellow)
Abstract. The price of crude plunged more than 50 percent in late 2014, an event whose ripple effects are still being felt in the global petroleum industry and on Wall Street. Before the crash, most forecasters had assumed that oil would stay above $100 per barrel for the indefinite future. In fact, a combination of technological disruption and political pressures left the price of the world's most important commodity vulnerable to sudden collapse. Are the current low prices just a blip, or have we entered a new weaker price regime for oil? And how might a better understanding of the deeply complex underpinnings of energy markets have helped experts make better predictions?