Era of Cheap Oil Is Over; Scramble Is On to Avert a Crisis

John D. Rockefeller’s refineries launched the Oil Age.

A superhighway in China may end it.

Cheap, plentiful crude powered cars, molded plastics, birthed the suburbs and greased the path to a prosperous American century.

Much of today’s world slides along that same path to industrialization. A 52,000-mile superhighway system is under construction in China. Millions of prospering Chinese browse auto showrooms looking for a new lifestyle based on crude.

But recent spikes at gas pumps worldwide hint that, for the first time, oil will not come cheap. Analysts and traders alike suspect we are on the verge of demanding more oil than we can produce