What goes down must go up would be the inverse lyrics of the famous Blood, Sweat & Tears song. Oil interests can only hope for such a reversal of fortune as petroleum prices recently scraped the bottom of the barrel. Investors must be wondering the same, and whether now is the time to invest in oil to enjoy the ride back to paydirt.
Yes, the oil business is facing plenty of negatives. There is a growing lineup of institutional forces arrayed against it. Renewables are making startlingly rapid advances into the energy mix. Innovative startup companies are promising to restart the U.S. nuclear power industry with safer and more advanced reactors. And, yet, oil isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. It still accounts for about 36 percent of all U.S. energy production, and natural gas another 28 percent.
The problem is energy was the worst-performing sector in the S&P 500 index during four of the past six years and, most recently, global oil demand came to
