The Big Plunge

High prices at the pump are finally giving oil companies the incentive to make long–and expensive–bets to find new supplies. No one is going deeper than ChevronTexaco.

The bad news for oil consumers is that global demand has been growing at 1.5% a year over the past five years, while production capacity has been inching ahead at 0.2%. That squeeze all but wiped out the industry’s spare capacity and caused a spike in prices. The good news is that the zooming prices have gotten the attention of oil producers.
Forbes