Cheap oil: opportunity or trap for investors?

Oil at $70: how long will the party last?

Imagine that in February 2026 a barrel of Brent crude is trading at around $71-72, when a year and a half ago it came close to $100. For many investors, that price is a bad joke: levels at which extraction in many basins stops being profitable. At the same time, however, petrol in the United States is around €0.63 per litre, and an average driver earning $80,000 a year thinks twice before switching to an electric car. Are we looking at a historic buying opportunity or a geopolitical trap?

A price that doesn't match production costs

Anyone who has trinc the market knows that below $50 a barrel, at least half of the world's oil output is unprofitable. According to the figures cited in the debate, that critical threshold is $40 for some conventional operations. Yet the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) revised its estimate of OPEC capacity upwards in December 2025, suggesting there is more supply available than previously believed. Combined with Trump's pressure to keep prices low — part of his strategy to hurt Russia and contain inflation — this has kept crude within an unusually narrow range.

But there is one factor few anticipated: data centre demand. Artificial intelligence is burning through graphics cards as if they were incinerator furnaces, and those machines don't run on wind turbines or solar panels when the sun isn't shining. Building a nuclear power plant takes years. In the short and medium term, the only way to feed that thirst for electricity is gas, oil and coal. And coal set production and consumption records year after year.

America's narrow margin for manoeuvre

The sharpest analysis in the debate points out that the oil price is moving in an ever-narrower corridor for the US economy. On the upside, it cannot spike without reigniting inflation and making the mega-debt more expensive; on the downside, it cannot collapse because fracking — which underpins domestic production — would stop being profitable. That margin, the argument goes, is getting thinner by the day, hence Washington's urgency to secure additional reserves, such as Venezuela's. The pressure on Iran and the rapprochement with Caracas are no coincidence: controlling supply is the only way to stop the market running wild in either direction.

The consumer paradox: cheap petrol in the US, expensive in Europe

While the barrel trades at levels some call laughable, the average Spanish consumer pays more than a euro per litre of petrol, and the American barely €0.63. The difference lies not in the crude but in taxes. As noted in the debate, the problem is not the barrel price set by producer countries, but each government's tax policy. That's why petrol barely fell below €1 during the pandemic, when oil briefly traded at negative prices. It's the same logic as tobacco: of the real cost of the product, the state takes the lion's share.

What now? The bullish thesis and the geopolitical risk

Some are betting that oil will trigger the next inflation wave between 2026 and 2027. Decline data from the US Permian Basin — where production has already begun to fall for good — point to a supply squeeze which, combined with growing demand from Asia and data centres, should push prices higher. Many are targeting Brent at $80-90 this very year, and don't rule out spikes towards $100 if tensions with Iran worsen.

But others remind us that the peak is not what matters, but sustained prices over time. A hyperinflation of oil would be brutal but fleeting; inflation sustained at $80-100 for several years would transform the global economy, leaving countries without energy competitiveness in the third world. That's why the investment cycle in exploration has already begun, with oilfield services companies such as Schlumberger, Halliburton and Spain's Técnicas Reunidas in the spotlight.

However, the data that upsets the applecart comes from the EIA: if OPEC really can pump far more than was thought, the entire bullish castle wobbles. That quiet revision of capacity estimates, published in December 2025, could be the key to explaining why oil refuses to take off. Meanwhile, those who bought when the barrel was at $55-60 have already pocketed gains of 34%, and the debate remains open: do we stick with the bird in the hand, or do we pull the trigger?