行业动态

在经济学和社会学中的斯坦尼法则（Stein’s law ）：如果事务不能再向前就会停止。而不能维持的趋势必定会反转，且越是不平衡则反调的力度就会越大。由此看来：油价必将反转，而且跌的越多、涨的越高！

“If something cannot go on forever, it will stop,” according to Herbert Stein, former chief economist to U.S. President Richard Nixon (“What I think: essays on economics, politics and life” 1998).

Stein’s law is one of the most simple but important statements in economic theory, yet it is remarkable how often it is forgotten.

Stein’s law explains why oil prices crashed from the middle of 2014 after spending more than three years over $100 per barrel .

Most commentators now accept a price of $100 was unsustainable (though at the time there were plenty who predicted prices would remain at that level forever).

High prices were encouraging too much new production, especially from U.S.shale, while causing consumption to fall in the advanced economies and slow in emerging markets.

The emerging supply-demand imbalance could only be resolved by a sharp price fall which was triggered in July 2014 after Islamic State fighters failed to seize Kurdistan’s oilfields andLibyaresumed oil exports.

In retrospect, all this is obvious, but the clues were there at the time for anyone who tracked data on stagnant consumption and acceleratingU.S.oil production.

UNSUSTAINABLE PRICES

Stein’s law cannot predict when an unsustainable trend will reverse, only that it must do so eventually, and that the worse the disequilibrium becomes the bigger the correction is likely to be.

If Stein’s law was relevant when oil prices were unsustainably high in 2012-2014 it is also relevant in 2015 now oil prices are unsustainably low.

There are plenty of signs that oil prices have now fallen to a level that cannot continue over the medium and long term.

U.S. oil production is forecast to decline more than 1 million barrels per day by September 2016, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration .

U.S. shale oil and gas producers reported losses totaling $24 billion in the third quarter of 2015, up from $15 billion in the second quarter, despite continued efforts to cut costs and improve efficiency