Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland (I’m sure that Autoblog’s invites were
just lost in the mail again this year), Bill Browder of Heritage Capital drew a half-dozen different hypothetical
situations that could send oil as much as 300% higher.
While the doomsday scenario – the fall of the Saudi government – is only the one that results in the
jaw-dropping $262/barrel oil prices, there’s a variety of other maybe-not-probable-but-certainly-possible events such
as civil war in Nigeria, major infrastructure attacks in Iraq, and Venezuelan or Iranian embargoes that could push oil
prices near or past the $100/barrel mark. George Soros didn’t provide the same type of specific eye-opening numbers,
but did state that he is “worried about the supply-demand balance, which is very tight
“. Soros claimed that ’07 should bring an easing of pressure on oil prices due to additional supply coming
on-line.