Environmental activists and Saudi-oil dealers aren’t usually on the same team. But the week of October 17, their combined efforts sent oil to a one-year high, reports Tim Puko for the Wall Street Journal’s MoneyBeat blog.
Drawing on trade data from Datamyne and analysis from Matt Smith, director of commodity research at ClipperData, the blog explains how an extreme drop-off in US oil imports was already pinching supplies – and so boosting prices – when a group of activists blocked Canadian oil pipelines.
“I’m not really sure how they thought through that action all the way,” said Hillary Stevenson, oil markets analyst at Genscape Inc. “It raised oil prices, which incentivizes drilling.”