Mexico Expects Oil Prices to Reach $70-100 Per Barrel by 2018

Mexico expects oil prices to stabilize in 2018 around around the minimum of $70 a barrel.

MEXICO CITY (Sputnik) – The Mexican government expects international oil prices to stabilize at around $70-100 per barrel by 2018, Secretary of Energy Pedro Joaquin Coldwell told journalists.

Since last June, global oil prices fell by about 50 percent due to market oversupply and large crude oil stockpiles. Current prices hover around $50 per barrel.

"The prices could depict the letter W, of rises and falls, until stabilizing themselves in 2018 around the minimum of $70 per barrel, and the maximum of $100, but we shall never return to prices of 2014," Coldwell said, answering a question by a Sputnik reporter.

The energy secretary said that one of the key factors in the oil price slump was an international oil market with a "surplus that ranges between 1.5 and 2 million barrels daily."

In November 2014, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) chose to keep oil output at current levels, causing a further slump in prices.

Last month, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said that he did not expect oil prices to return to $100 per barrel.