Oil price may hit $95 per barrel
Meanwhile, a report by Goldman Sachs has served a notice that crude oil prices may hit the $100 per barrel mark before the close of the year if the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) maintains output at current levels.
"Our estimates show that keeping OPEC production at current levels and assuming normal weather this coming winter, total petroleum inventories would fall by over 150 million barrels or 6.5 per cent by the end of the year, which would push prices to $95 a barrel without a demand response," the report added.
The London-based Centre of Global Energy Studies in its monthly oil report for July, also expects the prices to cross $80 mark in the coming months.
CIBC world markets reports projected this week crude prices to be $80 a barrel later this year and to $100 by the end of 2008.
Billionaire investor Boone Pickens sees oil price getting to $100 mark in the "worst-case" scenario. Barring even the worst case scenario, oil prices will rise to $80 a barrel within six months, Pickens predicted. Pickens bullish bets on energy have propelled him into the Forbes list of the richest Americans.
Deutsche Bank AG raised its "long-term" oil price forecast to $60 a barrel, from $45, saying the outlook is "extremely bullish."
And despite all this, the global thirst for crude is set to rise in the coming months.
