Buy oil – we’re going to be reliant on it for a while yet

As the world gets excited about electric cars and hydrogen planes, oil is decidedly out of fashion. But it’s still vital to the global economy, says John Stepek. And it will be for a long time to come.

Oil worker on an offshore rig
The oil price is on the way up
(Image credit: © PIUS UTOMI EKPEI/AFP via Getty Images)

Oil prices are on a tear – the price of Brent crude is edging closer to the $50 a barrel mark as I write. It might even get there today. That would be its highest level since early March, before lockdown and Covid-19 went global. For a doomed commodity and a “stranded asset”, it’s showing a lot of life.

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John Stepek

John Stepek is a senior reporter at Bloomberg News and a former editor of MoneyWeek magazine. He graduated from Strathclyde University with a degree in psychology in 1996 and has always been fascinated by the gap between the way the market works in theory and the way it works in practice, and by how our deep-rooted instincts work against our best interests as investors.

He started out in journalism by writing articles about the specific business challenges facing family firms. In 2003, he took a job on the finance desk of Teletext, where he spent two years covering the markets and breaking financial news.

His work has been published in Families in Business, Shares magazine, Spear's Magazine, The Sunday Times, and The Spectator among others. He has also appeared as an expert commentator on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, BBC Radio Scotland, Newsnight, Daily Politics and Bloomberg. His first book, on contrarian investing, The Sceptical Investor, was released in March 2019. You can follow John on Twitter at @john_stepek.