Crude oil prices could increase to $80 a barrel by 2007. OPEC acting secretary-general Adnan Shihab Eddin said the global oil market could see a major increase in the price of oil over the next two years. Eddin said OPEC members would not welcome such an increase and instead favor stability in oil prices. "I can affirm that the price of a barrel of crude oil rising to $80 in the near future is a low possibility," Eddin told the Kuwaiti daily Al Qabas. "But I cannot rule out oil prices rising to $80 a barrel within the next two years." Eddin said an increase in oil prices could be sparked by interruption of supplies from a producer nation. He said such an interruption could be as little as 1 million barrels per day. | I think they're right on this — a pity Mark Espinola no longer comes around. That kind of price implies considerable hardship for the U.S., which is a much more transportation-driven economy than Europe, which is still more transportation-driven than most of the rest of the world. It also amounts to the Arab and Moose limbs killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. High prices per barrel make oil extraction from shale and other expensive schemes profitable, and they provide the impetus for alternate fuel sources. Nuclear's already making a comeback. Organics become more cost-effective — the oil from garbage approach. And of course there's always the hydrogen fuel cell approach. Despite the pain we're going to be experiencing at the pumps, there will be a certain amount of satisfaction in watching the oil producers do to their livelihood what the unions did to manufacturing industries in the U.S. |