Oil industry in uncharted territory, says IEA senior exec

Singapore

The world is in uncharted territory where oil prices are concerned, a senior executive of the International Energy Administration (IEA) has said.

Neil Atkinson, the agency's head of the oil industry and markets division, said the oil industry has struggled to understand the shale phenomenon in the United States, and has failed, firstly, to foresee how rapidly it would grow, and secondly, how resilient oil production has stayed, even as oil prices tumbled in the last 18 months.