Lag in investment raises risk of tightened market: Atkinson IEA failed to foresee ‘technical ingenuity’ of U.S. shale A dearth of new investment in oil production is stoking a risk of tighter crude supply and unstable prices, even as demand growth is expected to slow over the next five years, according to a senior International Energy Agency official. The worldwide cushion of spare production capacity will shrink without further investment in exploration and output, Neil Atkinson, the head of the IEA’s oil markets and industry division, said at a conference in Manama, Bahrain. “There are still not enough signs of investment beginning to return, and that raises the risk of tightening of the market in the next five years and a risk to the stability of oil prices,” he said Sunday. “There is at least a possibility of going back to the situation we had 10 years ago where […]