[obixman]

Don't forget mine --- 142.5 89.5 113

[joewp]

I think that because we're getting ever nearer to the eventual right hand side of Hubbert's curve, price volatility will begin to increase. But since there's obviously an oil price that crashes the economy, we will bounce off that again and again.

So:
High: $141
Low: $ 72
Close: $108

My aim is to be middle of the pack. Since I seem to achieve that ranking no matter what I aim for, so I might as well aim for mediocre and reach my goal!

[ColossalContrarian]

My WAG...

High: $136
Low: $74
Close: $119

2012 will be my year to be in the top ten!!!

[pup55]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'C')itigroup forecast that Brent crude would trade in a range of $100 to $120 a barrel for the year, up from a previous forecast of $86/bbl, citing supply disruptions, low inventories and political tensions.

[Beery]

Here goes...

High: $130
Low: $85
Close: $115

[Pops]

OPEC made 30mbd the official ceiling after 3 years at that level of actual production and the priced dropped by $5/bbl

--- or ----

€ collapse worries has the US$ and all commodities rising, except for gold (which you can't eat and you can't sell if no one has the cash to buy) and oil.

Because this time around everyone knows cash will be king if there is a repeat of the 08 credit crunch - crunched by investors dumping out of their derivatives as all the CDS are tripped by EU defaults - er, voluntary write-downs and everyone mulls around trying to figure out who's holding the bag...

I think the $125/bbl economy limit I guessed at last winter has put the kibosh on the recovery. Contraction is happening, this is global GDP trade adjusted for seasonality by Staniford...


EarlyWarning

So the question is, how much of the downside is supported by the BRICs? Is China going into recession this time and will that impact their demand for moped fuel?

[rshizzle]

EU is still in Crisis, China has a debt bubble ready to go pop, the US is inevitably tied to both. PIGS starts to show they are in as much trouble as Greece, which causes problems in the US, followed by China starting to burst at the seams. QE3 should probably start next year. I think we see something similar to '08. We get a spike early in the year (April/May). Then Europe's SHTF, and chaos ensues. The alternative, is that the steady increase since '09 continues, as we kick the can a bit further.

High: 152.80
Low: 55.70
Close: 70.20 (Though it's an inflated 70 thanks to printing.)

[Timo]

Under normal circumstances, past trends would tend to indicate a rather modest increase in the prices of oil, but these days are a far cry from anything resembling "normal. As i see it, being such a keep "expert" in such matters, demand for oil is having a lesser affect on prices. I know that's counter-intuitive, but causing this condition is the world's collectively decreasing ability to pay for the stuff, as evidenced by the Fall of Europe, and coming crisis in China, and the U.S.'s refusal to let go of the easy-living status quo. The world is running out of money, and the more money we print, the less valuable it becomes. Hence, i see natural inflation going through the roof with respect to oil because everybody needs it. EVERYTHING we do is dependent on this one liquid, and TPTB will -seriously- pay anything to keep our current way of life alive, at least until it's convenient to blame the other party for the world's downfall. 2012 will make the financial problems that appeared in 2011 seem like a cakewalk. The world's economy is in a lot worse shape than is being broadcast publicly. Now, the wild card in this price challenge is - IRAN. We can expect a war, or at the very least, an extended military conflict. The warning signs are all there for everyone to see, and i predict that for some leangth of time in 2012, we'll see Iran close the Straight of Humuz. If this happens, all bets on the price of oil are off. Who knows how high they'll go, and that height all depends on how long the Straight remains closed. Even if the Straight remains effectively open, i've read that the Revolutionary Guard has/will launch mines to effectively scare the traffic to a halt. In short, i think we all recognize that we're on some sort of slippery slope now, where we all are nervous about what the other guy is up to, where we try desperately to cling to those resources that we've depended on for generations, and where we increase our willingness to fight the other guy for any new resource that opens up. The world is too volatile to support past trends, anymore. What we've all taken for granted our entire lives is being eroded, and quite literally, anything can happen, and some pretty bad things most surely will happen with increasing frequency.

So, here goes, and i'll try to be conservative and not count my worst-case-scenario bets:
High = $152 (WCS = $197+)
Low = $92 (WCS = $83)
End = $117 (WCS = Staying put at $117)

[pup55]

This is not my official forecast. I am just thinking...

Here's the 2011 price chart, with the trendline added. I made the assumption for the moment that the closing price will be about 98...



My theory at the moment is that we are on a long term uptrend, and there is noise around the trendline caused by seasonality, middle east dictators blowing up their pipelines, economic catastrophe and a lot of other things....

Here's the chart if you just remove the trendline....



You can see what happened: The maximum deviation from the trend happened last Spring when everyone was lining up for their supplies this summer, and the minimum was in October right after the driving season.

If you subtract out the trend, the standard deviation was 8.37 dollars per barrel, which means that over the year, about 2/3 of the time the oil price was within +-8.37 of the trendline. The maximum and minumum happened to both be about 20 dollars per barrel, which was 2.37 standard deviations...

So....

If you make some assumptions about the trendline, and then make some assumptions about the variability above and below it.... and make some assumptions that the maximum will occur in the spring and the minimum will occur in the fall, like it is supposed to and like it did last year, you end up with a graph that looks like this:



where the maximum is something like 121.89, the minimum is something like 87.12, and the end point is X dollars above where the current price is depending on the slope of the trendline. Maybe Saudi will make their long stated goal and have the price go up by $1 per month... maybe they will underachieve like they did this year and only have it go up 50 cents per month... I am still thinking about it.

I might also just look at where Steinar N is, and put my forecasts on one side or the other of his....

[SteinarN]

You asumptions sounds reasonably pup55.

However I see at least two different events that may make both of our assumptions useless. The first is the continuing Iran conflict. If Iran should close off the Hormuz, it's anyones guess as to how high the price can go. The other event I see as a real possibility is a meltdown of the Euro. Then it could be anyones guess as to how low it can go, though I see the downside a bit more limited.... I think....

I'm currently very uncertain in to how large degre I should factor in those events. Or any other unforeseen events for that matter.....

[pup55]

You're quite right. Possibilities for chaos are everywhere, as we saw in 2008.

A year ago there was talk that 2012 would finally be the year that demand from Asia would overtake the temporarily spare capacity that the world had because of the economic contraction...but, maybe growth has slowed down in China enough that this will not be the case...

how about this for a scenario: The "Arab Spring" this year happens in Saudi...

[PeakOiler]

Here's what I have so far:



The list is sorted by Overall Difference, then by Name, (descending).

I think everyone is making some good observations and speculations. I'm still crunching some numbers and weighing the possible black swan events (as they hover over us) and their possible effect on the oil prices.

I'll make my guess after Christmas.

[biofuel13]

Well I didn't do so hot this year so I thought why not just use the same numbers again. Ha!

High: $137.52

Low: $74.68

Close: $135.14

[TheAntiDoomer]

High. 114.67
Low. 89.14
Close. 100.32

[Cog]

Hmm the Antidoomer is counting on prolonged economic stagnation, if not contraction. A certain amount of irony at play here.

I'll wait until Dec 31st closing to make my call on this.

[TheAntiDoomer]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cog', 'H')mm the Antidoomer is counting on prolonged economic stagnation, if not contraction. A certain amount of irony at play here.

I'll wait until Dec 31st closing to make my call on this.

[Cog]

Cornie to the last drop.

Hey I can't argue with success. You are in second place while I'm in a dismal 13th.

[SeaGypsy]

Ok, before the nuerons get hyper about 2011's result; here goes for 2012.

My logic on pricing since joining this game has kept me going, this year I'm pretty much sticking with it.

WTI:

Low will hold at late $70's. Asia will continue to suck up any oversupply and any price signal under $80 will quickly bounce, as last year and before. The low will be tested, there are too many dark clouds on the horizon to imagine otherwise.

Low $77.60

High will be held back by the usual constraints under 'new normal', only slightly topping this year. This will not come as a result of European or US recovery but from Chindian internal economic engines.

High $118.20

End of year will as usual be dominated by phsycological factors.

Close $99.45

Have fun this year guys! We are in for nearly a decade of this.

[vtsnowedin]

I might as well join in the fun.
High 127
low 83.50
settle 114

[PeakOiler]

For what it's worth:

High: $128.46
Low: $76.73
Close: $104.52

A world event (uncertain political black swan) will push prices higher.
The resulting high price shock will lead to a crash, just as in 2008, but not as severe.