KAPSARC Oil Market Outlook (KOMO)

KAPSARC has a unique opportunity to provide an objective and insightful oil outlook that builds on our independent position and local (Saudi) market knowledge. Within the Kingdom, this would provide a valuable third voice to the existing Aramco and MEIM perspectives. Outside the Kingdom, the IEA and others could benefit from a public Middle Eastern voice. The difference from existing outlooks would firstly focus on transparency. Private outlooks are not open to the public, while many public ones do not allow for the internal workings to be exposed for inspection and debate. The KAPSARC projections would show all assumptions, sources, and the modeling used, barring any intellectual property restrictions. In addition to transparency issues, many of these competing outlooks tend to ignore the role of price in the supply/demand equation. Econometric analyses with inelastic pricing assumptions, or net market balance insights that ignore the price entirely are useful for identifying trends and making some decisions, but are unable to answer some questions that would be helpful for strategic planning by market players. KAPSARC proposes to develop an open supply/demand outlook for the oil market that includes a pricing forecast over both short (12-24 months) and long (2030 and beyond) time periods.