Will crude slip further?

Crude prices have fallen below USD 53. Ali Samsam Bakhtiari of Samsam Bakhtiari Consultants and a retired NIOC expert comments on the oil scenario and whether the crude prices are to slide even further.

Ali Samsam Bakhtiari comments that OPEC is in a total disarray and the reason for the fall in prices is due to the inability to put its act together. A major reason for the disarray is that the founding members of the organisation which include countries like Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Iran, Iraq and Kuwait, are all in a turmoil, or don’t see eye-to-eye, feels Bakhtiari.

…It is extremely difficult to make any prediction about the price of crude in 2007. But I could see it go much higher because in my opinion the peak of oil production in the world has been passed in the year 2006. The world will never be able to produce as much oil as it has produced last year. One of the sure signs that we have passed peak oil in 2006 is the price during the summer, which is 50% higher than it was during the winter. So predicting price for 2007 is extremely difficult and depends on many players as well as on the geopolitical problems that the world is facing today.

CNBC