How about $250 a Barrel?

Worried about global oil prices…. You ain’t seen nothing yet.

The CEO of Gazprom, Alexey Miller, has issued the most dire warning yet about the soaring the price of oil, predicting that it will hit $250 per barrel “in the foreseeable future”.

His comments were the most stark to be expressed by an industry executive and come just days after the oil price registered its largest-ever single-day spike, hitting $139.12 per barrel last week.

In a speech to the European Business Congress in Deauville, France, Mr Miller offered little prospect of relief. He warned that the world was experiencing a fundamental shift in energy prices that will end at a “radically new level. We expect that the oil price will approach $250 per barrel in the foreseeable future”.

Mr Miller placed some of the blame on financial speculators for oil’s price rise – it has more than doubled in the past year – but said that the primary reason is simple supply and demand, driven by the rapidly expanding countries of the developing world, principally China and India.

Given the worldwide protests we are witnessing at $135 a barrel, image what would happen at $250…