It'll get there. It'll get there. Just not till next year.

Goldman Sachs, oil's chief cheerleader on Wall Street, predicted on Wednesday morning that the benchmark price of oil on the New York Mercantile Exchange will average $95 (U.S.) a barrel in 2008, increasing its previous forecast by $10.

With the predicted surge, Goldman also said oil could pop as high as $105 a barrel in the second half of 2008.

Oil last month nearly breached the $100 mark, rising to about $99.30, a record nominal high and near the inflation-adjusted peak of about $101 reached in early 1980.

Goldman isn't a disinterested player when its analysts vault out new forecasts, which no doubt help stoke trading in the commodity and related equities. Goldman is the busiest investment bank in the world dealing in energy markets, such as speculative trading in oil futures that has been blamed to varying degrees for the near-doubling in the price of oil this year and for helping underpin the rise over the past several years.