Oil and gasoline prices have risen to their highest levels in two years, and analysts say prices could shoot up dramatically this year as the thirst for fuel grows in the U.S. and around the world.
The former head of Shell Oil has warned that gas prices could hit $5 a gallon by 2012 because of fast-growing demand in emerging countries such as China and India, where more and more people are buying cars, combined with restraints on drilling in the U.S. in the wake of last year's disastrous Gulf oil spill.
Less-worrisome forecasts are calling for a rise in gas prices to $3.75 a gallon by spring from today's $3.07 average level, with premium crude prices easily exceeding $100 a barrel this year as demand for oil around the world returns to pre-recession levels last seen in 2007.
"We'll definitely see $100 oil," Carl Larry, president of Oil Outlook and Opinions, told Platts Energy Week TV last week. "The way things are going — the cold weather, supply issues — $100 oil is inevitable and it's on its way." Higher gas prices will follow the lead of oil, as they usually do, he said.
Premium crude prices surged to nearly $92 in New York trading last week before falling back to end at $89.18 at the close of trading Thursday.
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries was mistaken in blaming the uptick in prices on "speculators" rather than an unexpectedly strong increase in demand in the developing world last year, and that led the oil ministers to put off any increase in production at a meeting last month, Mr. Larry said.
He said that was reminiscent of mistakes the oil cartel made in 2007 that led to a run-up in prices to $147 per barrel in mid-2008 — a record high that helped throw the world economy into recession.
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14 comments:
They really are trying to throw us into another depression. So much for any traveling this summer.
come on now, it has absolutely nothing to do with "demand for crude oil . . "
And we all know it!
10:02, foreign demand is surging as more people in India and China join the middle class. These are two of the most populous countries in the world and they are both experiencing a boom similar to what we saw in the US post-WWII.
i see the cost of wheat and grain spiking to over $100.00 a bushel shortly.
ya right....no balls
2.5 years ago the gas prices were George Bush's fault right. Where is all the screaming now that gas proces are Obama's fault?
so here we are trying to conserve
by buying hybrids and not taking any long driving trips, while we sit on one of the largest oil deposits in the world, letting a handful of oil rich countries tell
us how much we have to pay for a
barrell. Will the American people
ever wake up. Will our elected officials every wake up?
We have enough in our own country but the liberals won't let us drill.
Gas prices this high has got to be a right wing made up story. Everybody knows that with Obama as POTUS oil cant really be going up. Only Bush and his oil buddies would allow gas prices to go up.
raise em to 10.00 a gallon would love to see that, then all those idiots will get off the road! then what will all those state troopers do with no one to ticket?
11;41, you couldn't be anymore wrong. Look at global demand then look again at our likely reserves here, then try to make that statment.
11:41 - We don't need to drill OFFSHORE. There's plenty of oil right on our own LAND!
Looks like the Republicans are back and working hard for themselves.
yeah 12:40, lets just squeeze it out of rocks/sand and fracture the earth to reclaim the natural gas. Meanwhile we'll be floating in so much oil money we can just buy all the water we'll need to provide to the people living in these areas.
Obama was to focused on forced government health care than on the economy and inflation!
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