The "Oil, the Dollar and the Euro" was the topic at an interesting NACC MA luncheon meeting held April 12th at the Royal Norwegian Embassy from 12am to 1:30pm with speaker Professor Oystein Noreng, the Norwegian School of Management. Noreng is a recognized international expert on international oil and gas markets as well as an authority on how Norway has organized its own petroleum activities. He focused on oil price risk and currency risk, imperfect markets and currency choice, oil prices 2001-2004, OPEC concerns, other oil exporters, trade matters, and the politics of oil pricing.

The current global political environment with war in Irak and fear of terrorism attacks that could affect oil supply, increasing demand for oil in Asia, and the growing US deficit were factors that could keep the oil prices above $50 a barrel in the near future. Today, all crude oil trading is in US dollars, while products are traded in local currencies. However, the new discrete reference in oil pricing are in Euro, and the next step might be pricing oil in Euro, relieving European consumers and refiners of the currency risk in an eroding dollar environment. For more information, please click here to see Noreng's slide presentation.