Outlook 2024: The future is not what it used to be

The appetite for long-term oil investment remains variable

The issue of whether contemporary long-term oil investment appetite is at an optimal level is not a new one, indeed it has been a recurrent feature of both equity and commodity market analysis and discussions since the 1986 oil price crisis. The debate often splits into two broad camps: one view posits that markets are self-correcting and that the amplitude of oil market cycles is usually unproblematic; the other sees corrections as slow with informational failures creating a downward bias in investment leading to overly amplified and damaging cycles. It is often difficult to separate views about investment appetite from those about prices and long-term demand. For example, the view that the