By Pratap John
Chief Business Reporter

Oil price may make a drastic return to $100 a barrel in 2016, online multi-asset trading and investment specialist Saxo Bank said in its annual set of ‘Outrageous Predictions’ for the year ahead.
Opec’s crude oil basket price has dropped to the lowest since 2009 and unease among weaker as well as wealthier members of the organisation over the supply-and-rule strategy continued to grow, Saxo Bank said.
“The long-awaited sign of an accelerated slowdown in non-Opec production finally begins to flicker. Suitably buoyed, Opec catches the market on the hop with a downward adjustment in output. The price mounts a quick recovery with investors scrambling to re-enter the market to the long side - once again bringing $100/barrel prices onto the horizon,” it said.
The bank said its set of ‘Outrageous Predictions’ for the year ahead include “10 unlikely, yet perhaps underappreciated events” that could have significant consequences on the financial landscape as the world ventures into 2016. The predictions span the length and breadth of markets and geographies; ranging from oil making a drastic return to $100 a barrel to Silicon Valley’s much vaunted unicorns returning to myth. Other claims include the Russian rouble rising 20% compared with dollar/euro basket, the Olympics turbo-charging a Brazilian recovery and a meltdown in corporate bonds.
Saxo Bank chief economist Steen Jakobsen said, “We are nearing the end of the paradigm paralysis that has dominated the policy response to the global financial crisis. Quantitative easing and other forms of intervention have failed. China is transitioning, and geopolitical tensions are as complex as ever. The marginal cost of money is rising, and so is volatility and uncertainty. It is against this backdrop we have set this year’s predictions.”
“Saxo Bank’s outrageous predictions remain an exercise in finding ten relatively controversial and unrelated ideas which could turn your investment world upside down. It is rewarding to see how the Outrageous Predictions catch our clients’ imagination and fuel ongoing debate; it is this process of discussion and anti-herd thinking that is at the heart of Saxo’s now established tradition of attempting to draw attention to the unfathomable,” added Jakobsen.
The prediction that oil could rise towards the $100 mark as Opec responds to an accelerated slowdown in non-Opec production with its own downward adjustment in output could prove particularly timely for Gulf States, said Jakobsen.
“An oil price back above $100 is outrageous in this part of the commodity cycle, but a combination of increased geopolitical risk, better 2016 demand and significant slowdown in Capex in the US could make it possible. Energy consumption continues to expand and the 2015 focus on the supply of oil could easily change to a focus on demand as the US dollar weakens post-Fed’s hike,” Jakobsen added.