Infrastructure is real issue affecting oil prices

IN JUST two months this fall, the price of crude oil plummeted from its peak of $77 US per barrel to just $57. Crude has recently rebounded to the $62 range. Were speculators who predicted $100 per barrel oil off track?

The world is awash in crude oil and OPEC is cutting back production. So what happened to the peak-oil theorists who spread doom and gloom about the world running out of oil?

In the oil industry, the only certainty is uncertainty.

Speculators have not had a stellar record predicting crude oil prices.

In 2004 and 2005, they predicted oil at about $21 per barrel, even though it hit $40 and $50. Even the venerable Economist magazine can be wrong. At the peak of the 1998 Asian crisis, it predicted crude at $5 per barrel, but it didn