The current oil price per barrel is $138. Before 2008 the highest price ever was just below $100. The cost of pumping up oil from the North Sea is said to be approx $25. The same cost for the Saudi Arabians is said to be approx 25 cents (!)…we are not talking about a cost plus situation here really….and we are not talking a normal demand / supply situation either to say the least.
The cost to ship a container from Shanghai (including the inland Chinese transportation costs) to the Eastern US seaboard has risen over 250% since 2000 when oil was $20 per barrel. (www.spendmatters.com)
Extremely high oil prices drive a number of industries to reevaluate their current consumption. This will generate new ideas and alternative methods.
Fossil fuels emissions include Green House Gases. Green House Gases generates global warming.
I say the higher the oil prices the better it is for the environment in the long run.
I hope the price per barrel will reach $200 already this year (as many analytics actually already is assuming)….and $300 per barrel by Q2 next year…
One of the bad things with these price levels on oil is of course that new oil fields, not yet profitable, all of a sudden seems to be interesting for investors….increasing the total world supply with gazillions of tons of more potential oil that can be pumped out on the market…
June 25, 2008 at 10:34 am
[...] As Per Svanberg stated already earlier in this BLOG: oil fields, which were not profitable in the past, becomes more interesting to exploit in the future. At the moment there is a race going on for new oil resources. Denmark, Russia, Canada and the US are competing about the rights to exploit oil in the North pole region. A Russian submarine has even placed a Russian flag under the solid ice. It is pure irony that the global warming and the melting ice, makes it more interesting to exploit iron, manganese, uranium and … oil there. [...]