A Bullish Look at Future Oil Prices from Gerald Bailey

Dr. Bailey has 48 years in the petroleum industry with extensive engineering, management and senior assignments. He has experience in all aspects of the industry both upstream and downstream, with particular Middle East skills, along with US onshore and offshore. Bailey is retired from Exxon (NYSE: XOM), lastly as President, Exxon Arabian Gulf, where he was responsible for all Exxon business interests in the Arabian Gulf region. _PRNewswire

Gerald Bailey has devoted 48 years to the oil business, and is currently chairman of the Vanguard Energy Corp. He expects demand for oil to continue to go up, and for oil prices to rise along with demand.

An old oil hand, Dr. Bailey is not a believer in "peak oil," much less peak oil doom. But he acknowledges that most newly discovered oil deposits are likely to be more difficult and expensive to develop and produce, than oil fields developed in decades past.

Of course, the monetary policies of the US government have much to do with the current oil price bubble in US dollars. The less the US dollar is worth, the higher the price of oil in dollars is likely to rise.

And while "speculators" do not drive oil prices over the long term, in the short term powerful inside trading groups -- including sovereign oil funds and state connected investment firms -- can do a lot to influence the price of oil temporarily.

At this time, most intelligent analysts have their eyes focused on the BRICs (as well as the shaky Eurozone), and are considering how the volatile fortunes of these emerging nations (and nations in a banking crisis) might influence demand for commodities -- and thus influence their prices.

Anyone who expects global prices (and global demand) to rise monotonically is in danger of economic loss, should they wager too much on such expectations.