Speaker: Dr Badri Narayanan Gopalakrishnan Founder and Director, Infinite Sum Modelling Inc. Seattle

World oil prices have been depressed for more than two years because of the global oil supply glut. After reaching their peak in mid-2014 and trading at over $100 a barrel, oil prices went into a free fall later that year and briefly plunged below $30 per barrel in early 2016. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which comprises of 14 oil producing member-countries and controls around a third of world oil production, had until recently chosen not to throttle production in order to maintain global market share and probably to drive U.S. shale oil and non-OPEC oil producers, who have higher costs, out of business. Given these uncertainties about the supply shifts, both now and in the future, it would, therefore, be interesting to analyse their effect on global oil prices. In order to quantify the impact of these supply changes, this paper develops and employs a global Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model, with a detailed framework capturing all energy sources comprehensively. We assess the impact of oil production cuts on renewable sectors and CO2 emissions as well. Our preliminary results indicate a potential shift towards renewables and consequent reduction in emissions, despite losses across the world due to the artificial reduction in oil supply.