<p>I just wanted to take a poll to see how many people here think that oil prices will drop in the near future to "cheap" levels. Yes or no?</p>
<p>depends on what you mean by cheap. 10 years ago the price was at 20-ish i think. now it's, what? 70? </p>
<p>if by cheap you mean less than 20, that's unlikely. but if cheap would be somewhere berween 40+, then it's possible. i think.</p>
<p>Not in the near future.......not a chance.</p>
<p>By cheap I mean what Americans consider cheap which would probably be less than $2.00 or even less than that. Oil's around low to mid 60's right now.</p>
<p>$2 a barrell?? did that price ever exist recently?? :)</p>
<p>Many folks get confused about the pricing of oil versus the pricing of gasoline. Apparently they are thinking that gas just comes out of oil by pouring off the top like cream. Refinery issues also contribute to the cost of gasoline, it is a manufactured product not just poured off the top of a barrel of light sweet crude.</p>
<p>I meant less than $2.00 for gas, since that is where most people see the effects.</p>
<p>Gas won't drop down to 86 cents again like it was in 1993, but I wouldn't say that gas dropping down to $1.19 a gallon again is an impossibility. Once the supply catches up with demand and new refineries are built, the price will being to plummet.</p>
<p>If you look at a chart of crude oil prices over say the last 15years. Crude oil prices always peak in late Septemeber and go down from there. So I'd say they will go down. But then again, with the number of refineries not growing, we might experiece continued gas price rises despite the lower crude oil prices.</p>
<p>the price of petrol will continue to rise as global demand for petrol increases. With countries like China and India (2.5 billion people) growing at an average rate of 8% annually, I do not see an end in sight. I actually think the price of the barel will hit 100 in the not-so-distant future.</p>
<p>
I got 50 bucks says that doesn't happen in the next two years, and another 50 bucks that the Bucks beat the Wolverines in a couple weeks.</p>
<p>I agree that the price of petrol will most likely not breach the century mark for a few more years, but it will happen.</p>
<p>As for OSU, we'll see. I have a feeling it will be too close to call.</p>
<p>Your looking at it just from the demand side. The supply side short term isn't looking bad at all. And thus that's why I still believe oil will fall. Today crude oil fell, which I would expect. With this hurricane coming up, we should see a short term rise in oil prices though.</p>
<p>Supply side? Kinglin, OPEC is running at full capacity, and they have over 70% of the World's oil reserves. The demand for pretrol will literaly double in the next 10-15 years. The supply of oil can only increase by 20%-30%. I do not believe the price of petrol will decline much. It could dip under $60/barrel temporarily, but over the long term, I think the price of petrol will increase steadily and significantly.</p>
<p>OPEC can at an extent influence the price of oil, but not by much. supply increases aritmetically while demand increases geometrically. unless all of a sudden the earth spits out an enourmous supply of black oil and covers the entire Atlantic. but that's another story. :)</p>
<p>"Gasoline inventories increased by 2.9 million barrels to 195.7 million."</p>
<p>Anyways oil supply will increase due to the lack of refinery capacity. With the hurricane not to long ago in the gulf, many are still not up to 100% production levels. As a result a reserves of crude oil are building up. It's when we see the refineries back online that we might see a rise in oil prices through the short term.</p>
<p>The fact is that OPEC isn't at 100%, it truly never can be. 100% is saying that they are doing all they can to obtain all of the oil around the globe, in which they are not. There is no point to building new drilling wells around the world, for the price of crude oil will drop because of a supply increase, and thus OPEC wouldn't be bringing in as much profit. OPEC IS A CARTEL AND THIS STUFF OF 100% CAPACITY IS BS. Luckily man investors-as I- see this and continue to short crude oil in the NYMEX.</p>
<p>Saudi Arabia has not discovered any Super-Giant oil fields (400,000 to 500,000 barrels per day) in many years. Its existing wells are aging and it appears the Kingdom is operating at full capacity. Most of the OPEC countries in the middle east are operating at full capacity. We will see additional oil capacity not from the drilling of new wells, but from shale. For example, Canada has shale oil reserves riviling Saudia Arabia's oil reserves. The problem with shale is that it costs approximately $28 per barrel to mine oil shale. Ironically, mining shale also requires a lot of natural gas which is also currently very high in price. As long as the market price of crude stays above about $40 per barrel, we will see additional production from Canada. America consumes about 20 to 25 percent of the world's oil production and, thus, the American economy can influence the price of oil. We have been experiencing several years of excellent economic growth, but it appears Alan Greenspan and the Federal Reserve intend to continue raising short term interest rates in order to throw us into a recession the way they did in 1999. Recession in America will bring the price of oil down. Possibly Greenspan's replacement (he retires in Jan 2006) will be smarter and not cause a recession, but who knows. I see oil prices over the next 12 months ranging from $54 to $68 per barrel. Oil may seem at an all time high, but if you adjust prices for the effect of inflation, oil was $81 per barrel in 1981.</p>