Oil tycoon Boone Pickens told CNBC that the price of crude oil could hit $100 a barrel by next year.
Richard Drew
Boone Pickens
“The trend is up, demand is up and supply is flat, so it’s got to go on up,” said Pickens, CEO of BP Capital. Still, he didn’t rule out a short-term pullback to $78 before then.
Crude oil is up nearly 20% in the last 18 trading sessions. Oil continued its upward climb above $82 on Wednesday, after crude oil inventories came in lower than expected.
Pickens was one of the first to call that the price of oil would go above $80 a barrel. While he sees that hundred dollar target in site, he added that some kind of geopolitical event might spark an immediate move upward. That scenario, he said, would send prices up and less demand in the second quarter of 2008.
With global supply at 85 million barrels a day, Pickens said the projection for the fourth quarter is 88 million barrels a day.
Supply is not going to get any better, “I wish I could give a prediction. When does price kill demand?” Pickens said that’s just to hard to call as prices have never been up at this level historically.