Skip to main content

Oil Prices: What’s Behind the Drop?

The oil industry, with its history of booms and busts, is in its deepest downturn since the 1990s, if not earlier. Earnings are down for companies that made record profits in recent years, leading them to decommission more than two-thirds of their rigs and sharply cut investment in exploration and production. Scores of companies have gone bankrupt and an estimated 250,000 oil workers have lost their jobs. The cause is the plunging price of a barrel of oil, which has fallen more than 70 percent since June 2014.Prices recovered a few times last year, but a barrel of oil has already sunk this year to its lowest level since 2004. Executives think it will be years before oil returns to $90 or $100 a barrel, a price that was pretty much the norm over the last decade. http://goo.gl/jGihzv









The first commercial oil well was drilled in Titusville, Pennsylvania by an innovative pioneer named Colonel Edwin Drake in 1859. The horoscope for this event is rectified to 7:56 am; August 28, 1859; Titusville, PA. Major transits and progressions to the Drake horoscope correspond to major developments in the oil business.  In more recent times, the Drake chart remains an accurate lens to view the oil business and its effect on the U.S. and global economy.

A chart for the first commercial oil well,  with only the elements relevant to our present discussion, is shown here. Jupiter conjoins the TNP Apollon with both trine Neptune.  Among other things Apollon rules “business” while Neptune governs  “oil” so that the combination along with Jupiter is referring to large or successful business involving oil [1]. The following table lists the solar arc progression of Saturn in the recent past.

DYNAMIC REPORT

Oil - Natal Chart
 28 Aug 1859 NS, 7:56 am, LMT +5:18:42
 Titusville PA, 41°N37'37'', 079°W40'26''

Selection: Solar Arc Dirns planets

Sat (4)     Opp         Apo (10)  (X)  Sa-Na              2 Jun 2014             23°Cp23' D  23°Cn23' D
Sat (4)     Cnj           Had (4)    (X)  Sa-Na           22  Jul 2016              25°Cp33' D  25°Cp33' R

*** END REPORT ***


Notice that Saturn opposes Apollon/Jupiter and conjoins the TNP Hades. Martha Wescott [2] interprets the combination as under:

Hades-Apollon:  There is a decline or lack of business opportunities.
Saturn-Jupiter : financial restrictions; limitation on large projects

Jupiter  is trine Neptune.  About Jupiter-Neptune Martha Wescott writes:

Having instances of  "false hope" or seeing the self-confidence undermined..this is a period when "all that glitters  definitely isn't gold." People who built their castles on sand are  discovering that the tide has changed (and that piddly little bump is  where their fortress used to be.)

Finally we notice that transit Pluto is now beginning to oppose Jupiter. 

Steven Forrest describes Jupiter-Pluto hard aspects thus:

Under hard aspects between Pluto and Jupiter, faith is embattled. Perhaps someone has gone down a road for the wrong reasons…Comforting but phony elements of your life must be released and new possibilities seized under less than auspicious circumstances.

This applies perfectly to the sudden expansion of oil rigs in the US over the last few years made possible  by the US Federal Reserve’s “easy money” (zero percent interest). With the drop in oil prices, oil rigs are closing down and owners going bankrupt.

[2] The Orders of Light; Martha Wescott Lang



Comments