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Article: Who is afraid of high oil prices? OPEC's power to paralyze industrial economies is a thing of the past thanks to a technology revolution vastly mitigating our dependence on oil.(global Investment)(Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries)
- Article from:
- Research
- Article date:
- August 1, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 Summit Business Media. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Oil prices have reached new records, surpassing $40 per barrel in May. Just as in periods of low oil prices, when analysts typically expect the oil glut to endure for the foreseeable future, high oil prices inevitably occasion warnings that the world is running out of the stuff and that the era of cheap hydrocarbon has come to an end. And, just as in the 1970s and the early 1990s, the previous instances of oil-price hikes, we are being warned that now, at last, the situation is really serious.
Most likely, the dire warnings will prove exaggerated. Although pessimists predict the all-time peak in global oil production will be reached as early as 2010, it is ...