NEW YORK – The Goldman Sachs energy analyst whose predictions have fueled worldwide oil price speculation now foresees oil peaking at $200 a barrel, with gasoline rising to $5.75 a gallon before consumption cools enough to lower fuel prices.

In an rare interview published today in Barron's, Arjun N. Murti, Goldman Sachs' 39-year-old top energy analyst, said energy is in the later stages of a worldwide "super spike," with the possibility of $150 to $200 a barrel oil likely over the next six to 24 months."

Murti noted oil analysts have shifted from a 1990s attitude of, "It is easy to grow supply," to today's pessimism, "It is going to be more difficult to grow supply." The change is in part because oil-producing areas, including Mexico and the North Sea, are declining, while growth areas such as Brazil and Angola are just coming online.

In the interview with Barron's, Murti stressed he does not believe the world is running out of oil, and he does not subscribe to peak oil theories that worldwide oil production rates are necessarily declining.

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In Murti's view, the problem is worldwide oil demand is growing consistently, while supply is growing more moderately.

"We do think that the places that have large quantities of recoverable oil, notably Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Venezuela and Russia, aren't on track to grow their supply aggressively," Murti said. "And, to some degree, high prices are disincentivizing some of these countries to either open up their industry or spend the money themselves. These countries don't need the incremental revenue."

Morgan Stanley agrees, predicting oil will hit $150 a barrel by the end of June or the beginning of July.

Crude oil set a one-day record Friday, surging more than $10 a barrel, to settle at $138.54 on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

The price of crude oil on world future's exchanges has more than doubled in the past year.

Departing today on what is billed as his "farewell visit" to Europe, President Bush today blamed Congress for refusing to allow drilling in Alaska and offshore on the continental shelf, "to give this country a chance to help us through this difficult period by finding more supplies of crude oil, which will take the pressure off the price of gasoline."

Sen. John McCain has attacked Sen. Barack Obama's push for government incentives to develop alternative renewable fuels as government subsidies calculated to enrich special interests.

According to Stephen Power writing in today's Wall Street Journal, McCain favors scrapping federal ethanol credits, moving instead to develop more nuclear power plants.

"I have to give you straight talk about government subsidies," McCain told a business leader roundtable last month in Washington state. "When government jumps in and distorts the market, then there's unintended consequences as well as intended."

Obama has promised to invest $150 billion in alternative fuels over the next decade, with a requirement that the U.S. get at least 25 percent of its electricity from renewable sources, including wind, sun and geothermal energy by 2025, even though those resources today account for less than 1 percent of U.S. electricity.

 

 

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