A couple of weeks ago I was in Fort McMurray, Alberta.  I was visiting two large oil sands operations, courtesy of Conoco Phillips (NYSE:COP), Syncrude Canada and the American Petroleum Institute, which sponsored the trip.  I’ve been all over the place, but never to a working oil sands operation.  This was a first for me, and quite an eye-opener.

American markets at a standstill… can the Far East drive stocks forward? … Chris Mayer on buying “what China needs, but can’t make for itself” … Dan Denning’s pair trade for the next decade … Bill Bonner and Goldman Sach’s CEO on the current “bull market” … Plus, a CEO pay debate fills our inbox… your letters and our response, below…

The price of oil has to at least triple in the next few years. This could easily be your ticket to an earlier or richer retirement.

Oil above $40 a barrel; geopolitical risk returns… Israeli air strikes go into third day… China to build up oil reserves while price is low

Oil prices could fall as low as $20 a barrel in early 2009, says Jason Simpkins. But don’t expect these low prices to last long. Dwindling investment will prompt a longer-term supply crunch, which will send crude to new record highs. Jason gives seven ways to profit from this coming spike.

Don’t expect oil prices to remain at these low levels for long, says Byron King. Demand weakness for crude is temporary. And oil-producing nations cannot sustain their own economies unless oil prices are close to $100 a barrel. Byron says it could be time for investors to slowly build up a position in oil service stocks.

Canada’s consumer price inflation rose 2.2% year-over-year in May, edging ahead as the Bank of Canada signaled it would last week. The spike suggests Canada’s economy of is also sputtering alongside that of the United States, but soaring commodities costs just may help our northern neighbor skirt recession.

Once they started going long on oil it was fairly easy to perpetuate the run… all they have to do is buy at the ask price and oil just keeps going up and up.

T. Boone Pickens is a major oil guy. He became successful buying up oil and gas companies and trading energy for his fund, BP Capital. And now he’s forecasting $150 oil.

The number of OPEC countries has dropped to 12 from 13 after Indonesia an OPEC member since 1962, has announced it will leave the oil producers’ consortium due falling oil production. This from Bloomberg:

Indonesia, the only OPEC member in Southeast Asia, will pull out of the group as aging fields and declining production force the region’s biggest economy to boost imports.