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By Bloomberg

Oil prices are unlikely to go back to $100 a barrel because new technology is driving down the cost of production, said Larry Fink, chief executive officer and co- founder of BlackRock Inc.

“This is an oil shock that was supply-driven and the supply was created by new technology,” Fink said in an interview on Bloomberg Television with Charlie Rose. “New technology is going to create a permanent reduction in the cost of petroleum products.”

While more and more oil is going to be produced, prices could still rebound to $70 or $80 a barrel, said Fink, the chairman of the world’s biggest money manager. Brent crude for April settlement, the international benchmark, fell 14 cents to $58.76 a barrel at 9:56 a.m. on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange.

Oil fell 48 percent in 2014, the biggest drop in six years, as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries signaled it’s prepared to let prices drop to a level that would force U.S. production to slow. It has recovered about 30 percent from its January low of $45.19 a barrel as U.S. drillers have slowed activity. U.S. production will keep growing because of improvements in technology that are offsetting spending cuts, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

Oil-importing countries such as India and China will benefit from lower prices, Fink said. “That’s going to add at least one percent of GDP to India alone,” he said.

India will become the world’s fastest-growing major economy by the next 2 years, growing at a rate of 6.5 percent in the fiscal year through March 2017, the International Monetary Fund forecast last month.