Crude oil prices are still headed upward and could top $125 a barrel in the near-term, oil investor T. Boone Pickens said on Thursday.
"It will go up," said Pickens, who heads the BP Capital hedge fund. "Oil is moving to a substantially higher level -- say above $125 a barrel."
U.S. crude futures hit a record $115.54 Thursday.
Oil prices have more than quintupled since 2002, propelled higher by soaring demand from emerging economies like China alongside slow increases in global production capacity.
Pickens, in Washington Thursday to deliver a speech about energy at the McDonough School of Business, made more than $1 billion in 2006 by betting on rising oil prices.