Quote from The Kin:
How can $105 be top. The demand is rising fast and the supply is finishing just as fast.
$105 seems perfectly reasonable over the next few years. The days of cheap oil are over.
Agreed ... growth in world demand is running at 1.8 million barrels per day
per year (IEA), with global demand forecast at 84.3 mb/day for 2005. Global
supply will not be able to keep up in the long term ... take all proven
reserves and double them, and with current growth rates we exhaust all of the
reserves within 70 years. Problems will arise long before that.
The immediate problem will be to keep pace with the growth in demand in
China/India where it's clear they are getting ready to increase demand at a
rapid rate (look at purchases of cars, and road building in particular in
India) ... if these economies begin to use oil at rates anywhere near the rate
of US/Europe, world demand can double in very short order.
The long term trend of oil prices will remain up, and $105 is a conservative
estimate of where oil will go, depending of course, on the time frame.
Even with oil at $56, we are still not at levels seen in 1981 at the peak ($35
in US with price controls, probably $39 worldwide), which amounts to $82 in
todays dollars, which explains why the economy is currently able to absorb
extra energy costs. When spending on oil reaches some critical fraction of GDP
however, there will be major fallout.
In addition, it's quite possible that short term increases can be made in
production, to continue to meet demand, as happened in February with world
production adding 885kb/day to supply (about 60% of it non-OPEC).
So I'ld say this Goldman analyst is perfectly reasonable making a $105
forecast, but the key question is when we will get there. If he means it will
happen this year, I wouldn't necessarily expect him to be right and would
definitely be inclined to sell at such levels thinking that it's a speculative
bubble.
But if he only means it will happen in the long run, I think he's right and
that's where we're headed.