Mike Rothman is the President and Founder of Cornerstone Analytics, an independent research firm that provides macro energy research. Mike is an industry veteran, having covered the oil market sector since 1984. He started his career at Merrill Lynch, built the energy research platform at ISI, and has attended OPEC meetings since 1986. Mike joins The Stock Podcast to discuss the global oil market, capacity reserves, and oil supply following the recent attack on the Abqaiq oil processing facility in Saudi Arabia. On Sept. 14, 2019, the world awoke to the news that numerous drones and scud missiles hit Abqaiq, the world’s largest oil processing facility. The attack resulted in 5.7 million barrels of oil production capacity going offline, which equates to about 6% of global oil production. The event was the single largest loss of Saudi oil production in history.

Since the attack, Saudi officials have assured oil market observers that they would be able to fully repair the damaged facility within a months’ time. Industry experts like Mike aren’t so certain the Saudi timeline is realistic. Even more important, the Abqaiq attack demonstrates how susceptible Saudi infrastructure and production capacity is to an attack. In addition, Mike thinks slowing US oil production growth shouldn’t be relied upon to solve global demand. What does this mean in terms of the overall oil market, the Aramco IPO, and the Saudi’s ability to meet customer commitments? Mike answers these questions and more during our conversation.

This episode is the first part of a two-part oil market series. Be sure to listen to part 2 with Middle East expert Joshua Landis.