The recent Goldman Sachs oil price projection that put oil at $200 a barrel looks a little less likely today, as the price of oil eased off its $126 a barrel record. Analysts say oil’s drop is due to a combination of profit taking and a strengthening of the dollar against the euro and the yen. This from Casey Research on oil’s recent highs:

There is this overwhelming reluctance to admit that we’re simply in a new paradigm for prices and short of a wholesale collapse of the global economy, prices just aren’t going to pull back to a $75 level for oil,” wrote Neal Ryan, of Ryan Oil & Gas Partners.

Crude demand is “outstripping supply at a drastic rate in the global picture, so despite a few weeks of positive reports via the U.S. EIA data, there is a general shift in attitudes.

“A year or two down the road, we’re staring at a supply/demand paradigm that is just ugly, no matter how it gets spun by pundits and policy wonks,” in Ryan’s grim assessment.

“Too little drilling, too many restrictions, too little conservation and alternative energy efforts combined with skyrocketing global demand are going to make things look bleak 1-2 years out on the price curve,” he concluded.