Oil will never be @ $100/barrel

In January 2015, with oil prices in freefall, Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal sat down with Maria Bartiromo for USA Today and made a bold prediction: oil would "never" return to $100 a barrel.

His argument was about market share, not geology. Saudi Arabia was keeping production high even as prices crashed, and on that one point — despite, as he put it, disagreeing with the Saudi government "on most aspects" — Alwaleed agreed with Riyadh. The strategy: don't cede market share to newcomers.

He described the price crash as "a no-brainer": oversupply on one side (Iraq producing heavily, Libya still pumping despite civil war, and the U.S. shale boom adding barrels), weak demand on the other (Japan stalled, China's growth slowing to 6–7%, India's growth cut in half, Germany halving its growth outlook). "There's less demand, and there's oversupply. And both are recipes for a crash in oil. And that's what happened."

"If supply stays where it is, and demand remains weak, you better believe it is gonna go down more," he said. "But I'm sure we're never going to see $100 anymore. I said a year ago, the price of oil above $100 is artificial. It's not correct."

The interview also touched on the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris, then only days old, and the growth prospects of China and India.

The epilogue: oil did see $100 again. In March 2022, Brent crude briefly surged past $130 a barrel after Russia's invasion of Ukraine — a supply shock nobody in January 2015 was forecasting. Predictions about "never" have a way of expiring.

---

Based on Maria Bartiromo's interview with Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, USA Today, January 11, 2015.