So WTI One-month futures hit $100 today for the first time. The end to Jerome’s countdown series. So I went back and read his second post from June 2005, which included this quote from a CERA study:

The balance of supply over demand has the potential to expand significantly over the next five years, and this could drive oil prices to the downside. If demand growth averages a relatively strong 2.2% through 2010, prices could weaken from recent record highs and slip well below $40/bbl as 2007-08 nears. If demand growth were notably weaker, a steeper price fall would be conceivable; however such a fall would likely slow capacity expansion and bring a market rebalance within two to three years.

I looked at another historic EIA (eia.doe.gov) report from around the same time predicting we would be seeing $50 prices by now. Obviously these predictions are whacked. I can’t find specific demand figures, but only China and Russia seem to be above the 2.2% growth estimate here. What didn’t happen is all the additional supply coming online that was supposed to, assumed to. Maybe the Peak Oilers are onto something…

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008 at 7:17 pm and is filed under Energy, Peak Oil, Transportation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.