As finance and treasury board officials in Newfoundland and Labrador nervously watch the price of oil, one industry watcher in the United States says things will improve.

West Texas Intermediate futures trading was actually in negative territory this week, meaning that traders were paying people to take oil away.

Jay Young has been working in, and writing about, the oil industry since the early 1980s.

Young predicts that Brent Crude prices will almost double by the end of the summer or early fall.

He says fracking has flooded the US market with new oil, followed by OPEC and OPEC Plus nations putting more oil out there driving prices down yet again. That’s all been exacerbated by the current collapse in demand.

He says with Brent in the $20 a barrel range, many wells are being shut in and just won’t be producing.