Peak Oil alert: $100/bbl oil near?

So says Bloomberg:

The $100-a-barrel oil that Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said would prevail by 2009 may be only a few months away.

Jeffrey Currie, a London-based commodity analyst at the world's biggest securities firm, says $95 crude is likely this year unless OPEC unexpectedly increases production, and declining inventories are raising the chances for $100 oil. Jeff Rubin at CIBC World Markets predicts $100 a barrel as soon as next year.

I want to see how Saudi Arabia spins this once prices do start going up. Note that Currie says increased OPEC pumping would be “unexpectedly” happening.

That $100/bbl is already happening on some futures markets:

A record number of options have been sold that give the buyer the right to buy crude oil at $100. The contracts, covering 50 million barrels, only pay off should oil go above the target price. September crude futures fell 89 cents to $74.90 at 11:16 a.m. in New York today.

And, no, this isn’t just some traders trying to gin some numbers. Our own government is in some sort of agreement, without talking specific price increases:

”There are questions about whether the oil industry can keep up with demand,” U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said last week, commenting on the Petroleum Council report.

Peak Oil guru Matthew Simmons thinks these projections are too low:

Oil prices could triple in three months to more than $200 a barrel, given the right circumstances, according to Matthew Simmons, chairman of Simmons & Co., a Houston investment bank.

“Oil is still cheap,” Simmons said. “In the 20th century, with a few exceptions, oil was almost free. The only exceptions were during 1973, 1979 and when Iraq invaded Kuwait.”

T. Boone Pickens also expects prices to zoom:

A pullout from Iraq may be the event that pushes oil to $100 a barrel, according to Boone Pickens, the Dallas hedge fund manager. Pickens predicted a year ago that $100 oil would probably occur by now. Today he is looking for $80 within six months, and he says growing chaos in Iraq would be a bad sign.

What’s this mean in gasoline prices at the pump? A year from now, the U.S. average would be $4/gal, with $5/gal gas in places like San Francisco and New York City.