Oil goes into the red zone

The market is primed for another price rally. The industry needs to update its outlook

Another phase in the oil market's cycle—the bottom half of the circle, when prices slumped, reached their nadir, and recovered—is over. The next phase, which will take prices up around the arc to their peak, is beginning. The industry, still gun-shy after years of price weakness, seems no longer to believe in oil's cyclicality. But this will only reinforce it. Forget the conference-circuit jargon of "lower-for-longer" and "low-oil-price environment". Scrap notions that American tight oil acting as a swing producer or the "shale band" that would evermore keep prices within a Goldilocks range of $45 to $65 a barrel. Ignore, too, the forward curve—never a predictor of shocks—where summer 2019's