Oil Might Near $150 a Barrel by Summer: Gulf CEO

AP

The price of crude oil could hit nearly $150 per barrel by Memorial Day, CEO of Gulf Oil and the Cumberland Gulf Group, Joe Petrowski, told CNBC Thursday.

"If we’re not producing it domestically, because we’re trying to achieve administratively what we don’t seem to want to pass legislatively, and our imports are going down and demand’s up, it sets the stages," said Petrowski, whose company operates 600 convenience store/gas stations in the Northeast.

“I think we'll be at $100 in the first quarter," he added, "and there’s 1 in 4 chance we’ll take out the $147 highs before Memorial Day.”

Gulf Oil is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Cumberland Farms. According to Petrowski, the company owns oil terminals, imports oil and distributes about 250,000 barrels a day, which is more than some OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) countries.

Petrowski said he’s worried about higher oil prices because it hurts business and the economy.

“Higher prices are a concern to the company, because we have at any time almost 2 million barrels in our pipeline distributing to 3,500 gas stations,” he added.

“We run a retail organization, and low oil prices are good for the economy, good for our businesses, and high oil prices are an extreme drag. I like low oil prices.”