The folks over at the Oil Drum have done an interesting analysis of oil prices and where they might be headed. They come to the following conclusion:

Conservatively, plan for US$200/barrel by 2010, but don’t be surprised if a recession somewhere drops price back to US$100, for a short while, or sudden war in the Middle East sends prices skyrocketing.

Expect the fundamentals of fading supply growth and growing demand to push prices ever higher in the 5 year horizon, perhaps well beyond US$300/barrel.

In May of this year Goldman Sachs energy strategist Argun Murti famously made his oil price prediction that the black goo would “super-spike” past $200 in six months to two years’ time.

Turns out Murti knows a thing or two about the oil price prediction game. In 2005 he correctly predicted — when oil was at about $55 a barrel — that it would pass $100, which it duly did in January.

“Murti is getting the last laugh,” says Justice Litle in Taipan Daily. “When he first predicted oil could reach a $105 a barrel, way back in March of 2005, oil was trading below $60. The prediction was scorned and laughed at, even as it caused a bump in crude prices… some thought it was just a Goldman Sachs publicity stunt.

“But it was no stunt. Murti’s call was dead right, and all the naysayers were wrong. For the past three years, many have been predicting that the bottom would fall out for oil prices. As crude passed through each new threshold — $70, $80, $90, $100 — there were loud drumbeats for how the price of crude would collapse ‘any day now.’”

Another oil price prediction that is proving scarily accurate is Keith Fitz-Gerald’s forecast that oil prices will reach $187 a barrel within three years. Read on here to find out why Keith thinks oil is heading for $187 a barrel and why the energy ‘experts’ have it wrong again.

Compared to $200 in two years, Fitz-Gerald’s $187 per barrel prediction seems quite conservative.
For more about oil price projections and Peak Oil, visit our Peak Oil Guide.