The CEO of Russian oil firm Gazprom, the world's largest energy company, is predicting a huge jump in the price of oil. Could he possibly be right?
If you think $135 oil is bad, you ain't seen nothing yet. That, at least, is the take from the head of the world's largest energy firm.
Alexei Miller, the CEO of Russian oil company Gazprom (OGZPY), told reporters at an event in France yesterday that he expects the price to rise to...wait for it...$250 a barrel by 2009.
Talkback: What do you think will happen to the price of oil?
This is a stunning prediction considering that many of Miller's U.S. and European counterparts have been busy trying to argue that oil prices will go down - they, of course, are trying to ward off criticism about their companies' record profits.
Now Miller has more than a vested interest in seeing oil prices rise higher. So his expectations of crude nearly doubling after already rising nearly 45% this year has to be taken with several billion grains of salt.
Still, could oil head higher from here? It's possible. A stronger dollar would limit the upside, but as I've discussed in recent columns, the Federal Reserve's tough talk about the dollar is just that...talk.
Even if the Fed keeps rates steady, as expected, for the next few months, we could see a weaker dollar and higher commodity prices since the European Central Bank has hinted that it may raise rates at its next meeting.
What's more, because of supply and demand issues, Morgan Stanley oil analyst Ole Shorer predicted last week that crude could hit $150 a barrel by July 4.
But $250 just seems crazy - even with strong demand from India and China and tight supplies.
Many economists, oil analysts, market strategists and fund managers I've spoken to in the past few months agree that speculation is a big factor behind oil's surge. The price of oil may be artificially inflated by as much as $20 to $30 a barrel because of hedge funds and other traders making bullish bets on crude and bearish bets on the dollar.
In other words, oil should be trading closer to $100 to $110 if supply and demand were the only issues in play. Others say the "fundamental" level is even lower.
