SocraticGadfly: How high on oil prices during summer driving season?

May 06, 2008

How high on oil prices during summer driving season?

With crude moving back above $120/bbl (and now to $122) this morning and likely to stay there, this brings up further questions.

Memorial Day and the traditional start of summer, and the summer driving season, is just three and a half weeks away. Even if recessionary problems get worse, I still see more pressure on gas prices this summer.

Oil prices continued to push higher during the day today, with Jim Jubak’s prediction, which I blogged about a week ago, that oil could hit $180/bbl, getting new support.
A new Goldman Sachs prediction that oil prices could rise to $150 to $200 within two years seemed to motivate much of Tuesday's buying, although a falling dollar and increasing concerns about declining crude production in Mexico and Russia contributed, analysts say. …

Oil prices have nearly doubled from about $62 a barrel a year ago, which Goldman sees as a sign that the world is in the midst of a "super spike" in oil prices. Analyst Arjun Murti said in a research note released Monday that prices would ultimately force demand to fall sharply.

Mexican production, year-over-year, was off 8 percent the first quarter of this year. The country is expected to become an oil importer by 2015.

In other Nymex trading Tuesday, June gasoline futures rose 5.58 cents to $3.1087 a gallon after earlier setting a new trading record of $3.1163.

So, where will oil be at by Labor Day, the traditional end of the summer driving season?


Free polls from Pollhost.com
By Labor Day, oil prices will be ....
$125/bbl $130/bbl $135/bbl $140/bbl $145/bbl $150/bbl or more   


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