How high are oil prices really and what signal are they currently sending to producers and consumers about the need for more output and lower fuel use?
The strength of a price signal depends on both the real level of prices adjusted for inflation and the rate of change compared with recent years.
Rapid price escalation is characteristic of the first year of a cyclical upswing, when consumption bounces back and grows above-trend, while producers continue to withhold output, scarred by memories of the recent slump. Comparisons with oil prices during previous cycles are distorted by the impact of inflation, which has consistently eroded the value of the U.S. dollar and tended to raise oil futures prices over time.
If record Brent prices in 2008 are restated at the purchasing power of the dollar in 2021, prices peaked at more than $180 per barrel.Inflation-adjusted prices in the past were much higher than they sometimes appear in retrospect, and current prices are lower than they appear in long-term historical comparisons.
But shorter comparisons since 2000 or 2010 are dominated by the periods of very high prices in 2007-2008 and 2011-2014, which proved equally unsustainable, and may not be relevant to decisions in the 2020s.
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