Oil prices are a common theme of many posts on this blog, and this interesting Forbes magazine graph does a great job of placing current oil prices in historical perspective over the past 145 years.
Though some grades of crude have recently set record price highs on New York and London futures markets, the Forbes graph shows that, when adjusted for inflation, the price of oil is still only 60% as expensive as it was in 1980.
Houston's Clear Thinkers
Longtime Houston attorney Tom Kirkendall's observations on developments in law, business, medicine, culture, sports, and other matters of general interest to the Houston business, professional, and academic communities.
Does anything get more expensive any more, aside from government? 🙂
Kev, working for one of the majors, you should know what the market forces in play are. There are two curves on the graph, one is the consumption rate, and one is the production rate. The consumption rate continues to go up almost linearly and the production rate is a roughly parabolic arc. currently the consumption and rising edge of the parabolic arc are roughly paralell with the consumption curve inside but near the production curve, but we are approaching the crossover point where consumption is going to outstrip supply. All hell is going to break loose then. Some analysts think the crossover point is nigh upon us, some think it may be a decade or more, my bet is splitting the difference (say 5-7 years out). large societal changes will occur then. the two curves interact with each other somewhat, as the consumption curve approaches the production curve and prices go up, consumption will go down, so predicting the exact crossover point is likely to be hindsight. Additionally, oil supply is disconnected from gasoline supply somewhat, no new refineries have been built in decades and those that are in operation are near capacity. There are at least 30 different formulae for gasoline which makes everything a logistics game. Any disruption in the supply chain is going to throw everything into a tizzy.
we need more nuke plants and we need to be building them NOW.