MORGAN STANLEY: We're slashing our oil price forecast by 50%
But the prevailing opinion is now that oil won't be returning to triple digits a barrel anytime soon.
On Monday, Ian Taylor, CEO of Vitol Group and boss of the world's biggest independent oil trader, said the price of oil will stay beneath $60 for as long as 10 years.
Now Morgan Stanley has weighed in, slashing their 2016 oil forecasts from the $55+ per barrel range to less than $30.
It's all about demand. With the OPEC oil producing cartel refusing to cut production, it will take a lot of demand for the commodity to mop up the glut and return prices to normal.
Morgan Stanley analysts don't see any evidence of that happening soon:
We are pushing out our view of the recovery in oil by 6-12 months and cutting our oil forecast from the US$50s to high US$20s over the next year
Here's the chart:
The price of Brent crude, the European benchmark, peaked at about $140 a barrel in 2008 before crashing as low as $45 in early 2009. It then recovered substantially, trading around the $100 mark for nearly three years from 2011 to 2014.
But, right now, Brent and West Texas Intermediate, the US benchmark, are hovering between $32 and $35 a barrel thanks to oversupply and an attempt by OPEC to knock out the US shale oil industry.