Peak Oil Passnotes: $80 Oil Beckons

The price of a barrel Brent crude is working its way back up to its records of $78.64 set last August 7. A steady and sure combination of factors has pushed it over $75 per barrel.

But when it pushes up against levels of $78 per barrel, which way is it going to go then?


The extra spurt oil needed to break through lines of resistance above $70 per barrel was the resumption of parts of the U.S. refining complex. The extra capacity online in the downstream has boosted the intake of crude oil needed to make gasoline, and prices have responded.

There has also been the unpleasant news of the kidnapping of an English-Nigerian 3-year-old child in Port Harcourt in the Niger Delta. One should be reminded that there had previously been two kidnappings of Nigerian children, where ransoms were paid, that have gone largely unmentioned. But the kidnapping of a child is likely to scare oil workers even more than the regular spate of abductions they themselves face on a weekly basis.

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