What does it mean that crude oil is peaking? Essentially it means that the world has used half the oil available to extract and will enter a permanent decline, even as world energy demand is rising, with new economic powerhouses China and India growing at an alarming rate. Peak oil does not mean we are on the verge of running out of oil; the overriding implication is that we are entering a period of relentlessly rising prices and ultimate shortfalls.

After what I suspect will be a successful near term test of the $100 support level, the oil price should continue edging up, perhaps exceeding $200 by the end of 2009. But just as $100 oil is now starting to look like a bargain after we’ve seen oil pushing $120, so will $175 oil seem like a bargain when oil is trading at $200, etc.

Executives, especially Exxon executives, have thought for some time that they could keep oil prices under control by pretending that Peak Oil is a left-wing myth. Or that it won’t happen until we’re all dead. Most executives (other than Exxon’s) have stopped that foolishness by now.