by GreyZone » Thu 13 Jul 2006, 15:32:39
Wow. So let's pull Simmons quotes out of those articles in case anyone hasn't bothered to go look and just accepts your assessment without examining the quotes directly.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'R')OCKETING oil prices might hit $100 (£57) this year, controversial Texan oil analyst Matt Simmons has warned.
Crude surged past $60 a barrel last week and investors are pinning their hopes on a build-up in US oil-stocks to bring the price down again in the coming months. However, Simmons said surging demand will keep prices well above $50.
"We could be at $100 by this winter," he said. "We have the biggest risk we have ever had of demand exceeding supply. We are about to face up to the biggest crisis we have ever had."
(Emphasis mine.)
Could be. Risk. Hmmm....What did the other article say?
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'C')onsumers should brace for crude oil and natural gas prices possibly doubling or tripling this winter, Matthew Simmons, a best-selling author and oil-supply bear, said on Wednesday.
"Prices are really cheap today and they need to go a lot higher, and they probably will go a lot higher," Simmons said in Ottawa. "I am very concerned, given the destructive damage done by (Hurricanes) Katrina and Rita, that the United States must be closer to starting to see significant product shortages than we've seen since 1979."
Too much got destroyed and too little has been brought back on stream, the Houston-based analyst said. He also said that cold weather this winter could bring a very high risk of natural gas curtailment in the United States. "
Either one of those events (oil product shortage or natural gas shortage) could send prices two to three times higher than they are today," he said after a speech in Ottawa.
That could translate into natural gas prices of $40 per million British thermal units from more than $13 now, he said. Doubling or tripling crude would put it in the range of $125 to $190 per barrel.
trigger $100 per barrel prices. Neither of those events
happen. I fail to see where he made a failed prediction, whereas Yergin flatly predicted, WITHOUT ANY CAVEATS WHATSOEVER, that oil would return to $38 per barrel. Looks to me like Yergin is the bigger "lunatic", to use your own ad hominem attack.