While analysts have mourned the precipitous drop in oil prices, Barry Davis, CEO of EnLink Midstream Partners LP, encourages the industry to focus on the positive.

“No matter where we are in this cycle, we will rebound,” he told attendees at Hart Energy’s 6th annual Marcellus-Utica Midstream Conference & Exhibition in Pittsburgh. “This is a great industry, and we’ve never seen a cycle that we couldn’t come out of.”

His keynote address centered on the expected and the unexpected. He calmly asked people in the audience to raise their hands if they thought they’d be where they are now, with gas under $3 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) and oil sub-$50 per barrel. No hands were raised.

“Life is full of the unexpected and lots of ups and downs. No matter how many times we have heard, ‘It’s different this time,’ we will never overcome the fact that life is a series of cycles, and in this industry, we will never overcome the fact that this is a cyclical industry.”

He offered some words of comfort, though.

“Well the good news is, this ain’t our first rodeo.”

He asked the questions: What is different with this cycle? Are the factors that led to this cycle different from the others? Is this cycle more dramatic? Has it happened faster? Importantly, will the recovery look like what we’ve seen in the past?

To answer these questions, he compared the price drop in oil to several other downturns from the past 30 years. The current downturn from last June to today represents a decline of 57% over 207 days, which is neither the fastest nor the most severe of the corrections. The oil price dropped 77% from July 2008 to February 2009 due to weak global demand. It took 472 days to recover 50% of the original oil price.

November 2000 through January 2002 saw a 51% correction in oil prices, and it took 143 days to get back to half of its erstwhile peak because of what Davis called the “Post-9/11 Effect” of a small recession and lower demand. Stepping back even further in time, Davis recalled a 49% drop in oil prices from October 1997 to June 1998. It took only 105 days to return to 50% of its pre-correction levels. That one he attributes to the Asian recessions.

Finally, he compared it to the decrease from November 1983 to April 1986 of 67%. It took 465 days to recover then. This last comparison is the most important for Davis because it is the only other price correction driven by supply rather than demand. OPEC changed its pricing structure, and much like today, OPEC created an oversupply of crude.

Based on these scenarios, Davis thinks we could see a rebound in crude oil prices between 90 days and a year. He offered the possibility, however, that this time might be different.

“I said earlier, ‘This ain’t our first rodeo,’ but it might be our first rodeo with shale-driven productions,” he commented. “In fact, I think it’s a possibility that instead of acting like the crude oil cycles of the past, crude oil may act like the natural gas of the last six or seven years.”

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