the oil prices started to drop in 2015.
when did the oil prices start to drop?
2015
the city continued to grow for a few years even after the oil bust caused by the collapse in world oil prices. the population peaked at almost 37,000 in 1985, then declined to under 34,000 by 1989. low oil prices since the oil price collapse in 1986 slowed the oil sands production greatly, as oil extraction from the oil sands is a very expensive process and lower world prices made this uneconomical. oil price increases since 2003 made oil extraction profitable again for around a decade, until another slump in oil prices which began in december 2014 and deepened in 2015 resulted in layoffs and postponement of projects.
fort mcmurray
during the mid-to-late 1980s, international oil prices collapsed. the organisation for petroleum exporting countries (opec) established a quota system in which the international oil price (for its members) was set at us$18 per barrel. this system did not work, as kuwait and the united arab emirate (uae) did not follow opec policy and continued to flood the market with their oil. the result was that international oil prices were still at the 1970s level. in october 1988, because of kuwait and the uae, international oil prices had fallen to us$12 per barrel. the policy which the uae (and especially kuwait) followed hampered iraq's economic growth. in the iran–iraq war's aftermath, iraq had grown more dependent on oil prices. the result of kuwait and the uae's oil policies could be felt in 1990, when international oil prices decreased to us$13.67 per barrel. this time, the sudden fall in oil prices triggered reactions in iraq; in "al-thawra", the ba'ath party newspaper, foreign minister aziz criticised kuwait and the uae's oil policies. because of the sudden slump, saddam claimed at an arab league conference that international oil prices could increase to us$25 per barrel without hurting exports. saddam also claimed that the abrupt fall in oil prices decreased iraq's oil revenue by one billion dollars. iraq was not the only member criticising kuwait and the uae; several other members also criticised their oil-production policy. kuwait would not budge, continuing its oil-production strategy even when threatened by iraq. this, coupled with foreign loans iraq owned to kuwait, was the main reason for the iraqi invasion of kuwait.
ba'athist iraq