Where Boone Pickens Thinks Oil Prices Are Headed
Brent oil prices will probably fall another $5 from Wednesday’s $110 a barrel, while natural gas should reach $4 by the end of the year, noted energy investor Boone Pickens predicted on CNBC’s "Closing Bell"Wednesday.
Citing a slowing Chinese economy and good supplies from the U.S., Brent crude has dropped about $10 from the highs it hit in mid-September, Pickens, founder of BP Capital, said.
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“I don’t think oil prices go much lower from here, maybe another $5,” Pickens said. (Read More: Why Oil Prices Are Likely to Decline Further.)
He also said the U.S. should consider releasing half the oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserves. “There are 750 million barrels of oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserves, and I’d start looking at taking maybe half of that out of there,” he said. “We don’t need to store that much oil.”
Pickens also reiterated his belief that the U.S. can stop importing oil from the volatile Middle East. The U.S. uses 20 million barrels of oil a day, 11 million is imported with 4.5 million coming from OPEC, Pickens said. Of that 4.5 million barrels, Pickens said only 2 million come from the Persian Gulf.
(Read More:The World's Biggest Oil Reserves.)
The other 15 million barrels that pass through the Strait of Hormuz each day goes to China and other countries, Pickens noted.
“We can cover that 2 million barrels in North America,” Pickens said.