Pickens Sees Oil Rising to $75 by Year's End

Oil tycoon Boone Pickens forecasted that the price of oil would rise to $75 a barrel by the end of the year as the economy starts its recovery.

Recently, oil traded at around $43 a barrel.

Still, he expects demand is going to surpass supply by 2011, and the price of oil will once again jump up.

“I say $60 before it drops below $40,” said Pickens, in an interview with CNBC. (To hear the full interview, watch the video above.)

Separately, Pickens said, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s plan to raise taxes on oil and natural gas companies is a bad idea.

“They’re on their back right now because with prices like they are, you shut down 500 or 600 rigs already,” he said. “You want to get those people back to work, and you don’t do it by raising taxes.”

Pickens, who was at the Wall Street Journal’s Economics Conference, also revealed that the U.S. imported 62 percent of its oil in February. This means that $13 billion, or $328,000 an hour, was sent overseas to foreign governments.

© 2012 CNBC.com