Economist Predicts $150 Oil: Political Peak Oil Setting In?

If you think oil costs a lot now, just wait a couple years. Jeff Rubin, chief economist of CIBC World Markets, a major financial institution, predicts oil will hit $150 a barrel within four years, possibly sooner, according to the Toronto Star.

Why? In a nutshell, the other experts expect too much supply from so-called “mega projects,” too much political stability from the world’s oil-producing nations and too much fair weather. Their expectations are too optimistic.
Rubin argues that costly delays will continue to mark the development of newly tapped oil reserves, like oil sands, oil shale and new deep-water deposits. He argues that violence is likely to disrupt supply, or spark fears enough to drive up the cost. And he argues that extreme weather will interrupt the flow of oil from important regions.

In other words, a combination of scenarios that a Peak Oil analyst would embrace – namely, moving toward reserves that are expensive to exploit because the cheap and easy crude is being depleted – and confounding political and environment circumstances that upset the flow of the remaining cheap stuff. We call that political peak oil. Rubin, it should be noted, embraces the peak oil theory, and believes we’ve already hit the peak.

The Daily Green