Oil prices are pulling back on an explosive U.S. dollar and recession fears as the International Energy Agency (IEA) declares that we are going through the worst energy crisis in the history of the world. That’s right, the same International Energy Agency that just a couple of years ago told the world to stop investing in fossil fuels is now bemoaning the fact that underinvestment in fossil fuels has created not only war in Europe but a crisis unlike anything the world has ever seen.
At the Sydney Energy Forum (SEF) the IEA executive director Fatih Birol has blamed the energy crisis on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He says it has had a larger impact on energy supplies than the oil crises in the 1970s. Argus Media reported that Birol said, “We are in the middle of the first global energy crisis. The world has never witnessed such an energy crisis in terms of its depth and consequences. It is interwoven by many factors, including geopolitics, and I believe we may not have seen the worst of it yet. This winter in Europe will be very, very difficult.”
Yet, while he blamed Russia for all the world woes on energy, he failed to take responsibility for the IEA’s part in allowing Europe to become vulnerable to this energy price shock. The IEA has actively promoted a pullback in investment in fossil fuels and failed to flag as a risk Europe’s growing dependence on Russia as a supplier of oil and gas. Instead, he seemed to tout the green energy mistakes. “We are going to see some tension in some countries on how they are going to align their national energy security demands with climate demand, but countries should not lock in large-scale fossil fuel investments,” Birol said.
In the meantime we have to deal with the green new deal recession. The U.S. dollar is rallying as the euro falls back close to parity. With the dollar raising concerns about the European economy and how deep and long this energy-related recession is going to last, the strength in the dollar has caused a risk-off across the commodity complex. Oil is getting beat up, not only on concerns about weak demand but also due to concerns about the strength in the dollar.
We’ll also get the first look at the American Petroleum Institute report tonight and we know that crude oil supplies may increase because of a 6.9-million-barrel release from the strategic petroleum reserve last week. There will be a focus on gasoline and diesel supplies as the market wants to get a sense for how strong demand was over the 4th of July holiday weekend.
Natural gas, on the other hand, is breaking out to the upside. Not only is it be supported by European prices, but the potential for a heat dome.