The Trump Effect on the oil industry

THE outcome of the US election caught everyone off guard. Donald Trump - an entrepreneur and entertainment star with dubious business records and no experience in office - the unlikeliest choice by any keen observer of American politics, will become the 45th president of the most powerful nation in the globe. He succeeds Barack Obama on Jan 20, and, by then, world leaders will need to have worked out a strategy on how to make international deals with a nation headed by a chief executive with an unpredictable, volatile personality.

A bullish case for oil

Oil prices are regulated by a global balance between supply and demand. The drop in the price of the oil barrel from pre-2014 levels had oversupply as its main cause, fuelled by a large number of oil-exploration projects undertaken on the idea that high oil prices would be indefinitely sustainable.