Oil price may hit $100. a barrel

[Bluebear]

..."It is worth asking ourselves - ‘what would happen tomorrow if we lost four million barrels a day, due to some accident?’ Or let’s say Iraq’s two million barrels a day became unavailable. OPEC’s got no spare capacity. And that could be it - $100 per barrel....

Sieminski stressed that this was not a wild claim. "The last time OPEC was at 95-100 per cent capacity was in 1973-74, and again around 1980. And disruptions put prices up by 50 to 100 per cent.

"We’re at $40 already, so a repeat gives you $60-$80 per barrel." Two separate instances of disruption, on this logic, could take the price up a further step to $100.

-snip-

The spike came after the US raised its security alert to "high", citing a possible al-Qaeda attack on financial institutions. The announcement was made on Sunday, but yesterday was the first chance for markets to react.

http://business.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=887522004