Oil prices to triple again

in 2008 OPEC oil production actually fell even as oil prices were above $100 a barrel, a sign of the “tyranny of geology”.

SHOOT: The limits to growth are here, in other words

clipped from blogs.wsj.com Raymond James’s notes that non-OPEC oil production apparently peaked in the first quarter of 2007, and given precipitous falls in oil output from Russia to Mexico, there’s not much hope for a recovery. OPEC production—and thus global output—peaked a little later, in the first quarter of 2008, Raymond James says. The contention rests on a simple argument: OPEC oil production actually fell even as oil prices were above $100 a barrel, a sign of the “tyranny of geology” that limits the easy production of ever-more crude. “Those declines had to have come for involuntary reasons such as the inherent geological limits of oil fields … We believe that the oil market has already crossed over to the downward sloping side of Hubbert’s Peak,” the analysts write. If true—and the analysts note that true historical peaks are only visible in the distant rear-view mirror—then expect oil prices to jump back toward triple digits.