Am I correct that oil was at $12/barrel in '98? If so can anyone explain how things have changed so fast? Are the basics - supply and demand - so difficult to gauge and predict?
Oil was so cheap back then because so many of the Asian currencies collapsed, resulting in a huge drop-off in Asian demand for just about every raw material.
For one thing, the oil companies were not making any profit at all until crude got to be at least 20.00 a barrel. But, then no one even gave that a thought.