How Low Should It Go? Analysts Predict Oil To Plunge As Low As $80 A Barrel!

It better keep dropping. After all, according to Sarah Palin, oil IS the reason why we went to war in Iraq.

McCain - Palin 2008!

just remember, when it comes to gas prices. WHAT GOES DOWN, MUST COME BACK UP.

Obama - Biden 2008!

$75 a barrel would be a realistic price (but I bet OPEC is going to fight it going below $100 tooth and nail).

Gas will be $3 a gallon in six months. Everyone who spent an extra $10,000 to get a hybrid will look stupid and SUV's will be back. Life will go on as if $4.50 a gallon never happened.

haha... I wish you are right, but I highly doubt it

45MPG at $3 a gallon doesn't look stupid to me, it looks efficient.

Thats a good one.

SUV's are dead. Their time came and went during the 90's and the first part of the new century.

Gas dropping to $80 (please do this) a barrel is still way above what we were paying just a couple years ago.

With China's economy increasing and the US not building any new refinery's since the 70's don't expect gas prices to drop to the good ole days of 1-2 dollar a gallon gas. We were artifically boosted to 4 dollar gas, however expect that to be the true rate in a few years.

Lets all remember that GAS is not the only use for Oil. Tons of Petrochemicals are made using Oil. Most of your plastics for example. So as the poputlation of the world increases the need for these goods rises, expect Oil prices to keep rising.

The real stupid one is who would buy gas-guzzling car again after gas price drops. Haven't learned anything from the previous mistake yet?

Spectator - yes we haven't built any refineries since the '80's but there are so many multi-billion dollar expansions to increase production going on. I'm pretty sure that none of them are gong to be complete until late 2009 though.

As far as these analysts go, they're just a bunch of circle jerks. They probably have some sort of incentive one way or another so they publicize accordingly. These analysts are probably just trying to strike fear into oil investors, which usually only works for a second or two.

I would rather have a fuel efficient car and low gas prices than be stuck with a gas-guzzler when the high prices come back.

Of course, I say this with a car that has a 17MPG average.

If you actually believe gas will drop to $80 a gallon, there is a bridge in Brooklyn I like to sell you cheap as well.

that's quality material right there.

Could it please just go back to 25 per barrel so that i could afford to send my kids to school in 15 years.

Oh..missed this one when I posted but Bush era will be known as Oil Frenzy!!

There is a well-established trend in deflated crude prices through time, and there is absolutely no reason to believe that such trend will be violated.

Although it must be noted that the actual quantitative value of that relationship is somewhat difficult to arrive at, since the CPI and PPI indexes overestimate inflation. This is why corrections are often applied under what Marilyn Vos Savant points out are referred to "hedonic quality corrections". Depending on what the value of that correction is used, the the actual real prices of crude with time can be said to be everything from slightly declining, to flat, to slightly increasing.

This is what you do, you look up the real prices through time of metals (with the exception of gold) such as Aluminum, Copper etc.

These are finite resources, and their prices DECLINE with time, despite ever increasing usage.

Technology is not trivial, and as heterogeneous resources these metals and oil for that matter are not even subject to physical exhaustion. Decades from now when we stop producing oil, it won't be because it is astronomically expensive or we are "run out" it will because it will have no use- it will be worth NOTHING.

Before you bother me with such uneducated idiotic drivel again, I suggest you a) at least bother to do some research or b) take a natural resource economics class.

That fact does not actually change the economics. There is a man named John E. Tilton who wrote a book called "On Borrowed Time?"- read it.

I have a Master's degree in Petroleum Engineering- my focus in Graduate School- Petroleum Economics. That is my specialty.

"That fact does not actually change the economics."

That needs a caveat- that is true now, and previously, but it won't be forever.

...maybe. Depends on the specifics.

I am going to try to be fast about this- and not write 4 pages.

It doesn't really, or at least it hasn't yet. What you are talking about is recycling. Recycling in theory extends the depletion profile beyond what the primary resource figures would suggest, but it needs to be remembered that it is often not a no-loss process. Historically, there is not a lot of it that has gone on. Lead is probably the most recycled metal. Incidentally, when I talk about historical trends I am not talking about 10 or 20 or 30 years; I am talking about approximately 150 years of price information.

Here is the important stuff. To the market, it is ancillary whether or not metals or any other material produced from a finite resource that is set to be recycled had a previous life. The reason for that is that that material does not maintain its cost structure- it is actually nothing more than a new deposit each of which has its own extraction cost structure partially depending on, yes, what it turned into to be of use to society. What it actually was doesn't really matter to the market, it is a matter of the cost to extract it. Recycling is actually no different than finding a new oil deposit. A Nordhaus diagram is a good way to visualize this.

I know what your confusion is based on- you envision that years from now we won't have any oil left but we will still have Aluminium. That situation will never occur- we will never produce all of the oil. The reason for that have to do with the physics of oil extraction and the pressure depletion mechanism (to say nothing of residual oil saturation). The only difference between metals and oil is the relationship between the resource base and the reserves available to the market- i.e. some of the deposits of metals were created by man and not nature.

@cdoke: fair enough--we won't actually run out of oil or aluminium...but how is the economics not affected? If the extraction method changes, it's reasonable to assume that the cost for extraction changes, too, right?

That is exactly why it is treated as nothing more than a new deposit with different costs. It is not necessarily less costly to recyle, incidentally. The market behaves exactly the same in both circumstances, and firms behave in exactly the same manner in both circumstances.

I cannot find the specific diagram that I think would help online, it is in Dr. Tilton's book though (pg. 27)

...except that diagram does not include a backstop...

Those same economist predicted oil to hit $200 a barrel by years end too....whatever...lol..

I hope it hits 40-50 a barrel, but no matter what, we need to make sure that gasoline doesn't go below $2.75 a gallon. If you ask me (and I'm no PhD econ grad), at $2.75 a gallon people will be more more fuel-concious, while people who need big trucks and SUVs wont get stomped on at the pump.

Also, a better taxing system would help control demand. At the same time, as a people/govt, we need to sit down and select the best alternatives and give them priority (i.e. algae biopetroleum). I'd rather be paying $60 a barrel for biopetroleum than $40 a barrel that goes to saudi arabia.

Sad, we can talk and talk, but the real criminals are the speculators and their political lackies.

Three comments ago... A message for Cdoke.. This conversation was extremely sophisticated before you posted. Thanks for your lame, yet upscale version of every other comment. Next.

I try to avoid being mean, but I think I shall make an exception.

Crawl back into the gutter that your family pulled themselves out of.

I predict it will go down to $70 a barrel.
Oil will be a big loser in the upcoming 2-4 years. Here's why:

1. The public's attitude about energy has significantly shifted towards more economical means.
2. Automakers are scrambling to make their cars as efficient as possible and we have now the largest number of fuel efficient vehicles ever, and all eelctric cars within the next 4 years will be a very common sight.
3. We now have a HUGE clean energy movement in America like the 10 year plan proposed by some to rid the country of foreign energy dependence. Its not to save mother earth, its to save mother bank account.
4. The rise of the dollar against the Euro has finally begun. See current prices. Stronger dollar means lower oil prices (since oil is traded globally in USD$)
5. Stricter Regulation will have speculators think twice before inflating crude prices.
6. European economic recession forcasted will take an even further toll on global demand

Its all a beautiful thing. Though we may not yet know it, the redical rise in crude prices may have been the best thing to happen to America in decades. History shows that all downturns are followed by rapid expansion and growth. Hang on guys, we are getting there.

Once gas goes down to 70 a barrel and its 3 bux. All of that will be forgotten and neglected. Only in a crisis things change. It has to rise for those things to keep going.

candywhite.

Although I used to believe the same, I now realize that the public's opinion has PERMANENTLY changed. We no longer trust the oil market and dont like the idea of being at its mercy. Same goes for automakers.

w209, all I have to say is, I hope you're right. I hope people really have changed.

We're pulling the troops out of Iraq and oil is coming down to $80 bucks a barrel.

This will drive the Obama Libs nuts.

:-D

bimmerfan25, you need to get out of the past. I'm a McCain/Palin fan.

hahahahaha I love democrats.


your tears fuel me

E .• ` ' / •. F

For all of your BS...bimmer...it sure is funny you FIRED the socialist and enlisted a Conservative (Merkel) to run your country....

What's the unemployment rate in your country again?.....10.2%
..TWICE that of America.

Yeah...you're doing just great. Keep on bussing you compadres over to the U.S. for surgery...we love all of the business.

Too bad you guys can't do it for yourselves.

Bimmerfan,

Theres a recession coming your way! and it has our name on it. Enjoy it! Euro drops even more, Every Major Euro Stock Market is down 20-30% this year, Housing slump in Spain, England, and others with double digit effects. Interest rates remain high. And the ECU is scared of inflation. Im not wishing you luck because you think you have it all ;)

I wouldn't set my money on oil to stay at $3 a gallon. Eventually inflation will get to all of us. The sudden oil price surge put alot of people into financial trouble. I still think that the US needs a new way to meet American oil needs. The middle east is benefiting from our oil consumption.

will you please just stop commenting...your typical rants are just a waste for everyone else...you claim other people are sheep, but nothing you are saying is an original thought...please just go away.

this is not a good news, i want gas to stay up

Drilling is the answer along with developing every other energy source we can (solar,wind, nuclear, natural gas). Do it all.

If U.S. Congress lifts the ban on offshore drilling...there is no telling how far it will drop.

bimmerfan25,
Are you troll or are you really as uninformed as you portray yourself? Your unused drilling permits line is nothing but a bogus democratic talking point long since debunked. As for your boasts of European love for Barack Obama, you're too arrogant and narrow-minded to realize that this is all the more reason not to vote for the inexperienced fraud. America is not Europe, and it doesn't desire to be. The US was founded by freedom-loving people fleeing repressive European rule. Yours is a dying continent living off its past. Americans want a president acting in our best interests, appointing judges that look to our Constitution, not int'l law. You are drawn to Obama because you recognize a socialist when you see one. You can have him and David Hasselfoff too. Let me leave you with a bit of sage advice bimmerfan25 : Trade your Euros for US dollars asap.

I have to admit that in this election, I find the timing of Thomas Sowell's book "Economic Facts and Fallacies" to be very appropriate. I hope those who do read this book have committed Obama's acceptance speech to memory, so the two may be compared- a disturbing exercise to say the least.

Sowell's book is rather dry in places, admittedly, in fact if you want more concrete examples "The Power of Logical Thinking: Easy Lessons in the Art of Reasoning... and Hard Facts About its Absence in Our Lives." by Vos Savant is very good. It was written in 1996 and contains a section about how politicians exploit out innocence with examples from the '92 election. If you idolize Clinton or Gore you might not like what is said, though (I don't mean to imply that it is one sided).

I can say, I think that if bimmerfan were in his right mind, he wouldn't dare call these two stupid.

Americans are the biggest consumer of oil in the world. I hope americans learned a lesson from these record high prices by using less oil and switching to more fuel efficient cars and occasionally using mass transport, just like the rest of the world is doing.

The lower the better