Oil price surge defies forecasters

As crude-oil futures climbed above $51 a barrel this week, analysts threw up their hands and wondered why.

“None of the historical correlations analysts have used – inventories primarily for oil, storage for natural gas, natural-gas and oil prices for rig counts — work,” said Jim Wicklund, managing director of energy research at Banc of America Securities.

“No one can really explain, with anything but a very broad brush, why crude oil prices are as high as they are.”

“This time is different than other times,” Adkins said. “We’ve always had an oil bubble in our existence, where there was more supply capacity than demand, and that’s essentially not the case anymore.”

Secondly, demand from China has skyrocketed. And thirdly, in some areas of the world, supply growth has hit a wall.