The EIA World Oil Price Timeline is an annotated graph of the price of Saudi Light from 1970-1973 and Imported Refiner Acquisition Cost (IRAC) from 1974 to present. The blue line on the graph is the nominal price in US dollars per barrel and the red is the inflation adjusted price in January 2009 dollars. You can scroll along the time line to select a time period to view in more detail.
The letters on the graph refer to major events affecting the oil industry and short summaries of these are listed to the right. There are no links to the full articles and no information about the source of individual stories. There is, though, a list of the sources that are used at the bottom of the page and these include Energy Information Administration, Financial Times, International Oil Daily, Lloyd’s List and Reuters.
This is a neat tool that enables you to not only view the changing price of oil over the years but also to identify the events associated with those changes. As an example, take a look at the period 1975-1985 when the the oil price rose dramatically in real terms.
Gordon is now on YouTube and Number 10 is busy Twittering away. It seems, though, that they are so pre-occupied with their new toys and the digital environment that they have forgotten to check what is going on in the real world. In the House of Commons Hansard Written Answers for 12 May 2008 pt 0002, Norman Baker asked the Secretary of State for Transport whether she plans to revise her projections for the future price of oil in (a) 2010, (b) 2015 and (c) 2020. Jim Fitzpatrick replied that the Department for Transport uses oil price projections from the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) in its transport modelling. The 2nd May 2008 revised BERR oil price assumptions are (a) $65; (b) $68; and (c) $70 for the years requested.
Unbelievable! I dread to think what sort of policies will emerge as a result. As well as a third Heathrow runway, they’ll probably be suggesting a fourth or even a fifth one.
With oil having recently reached $128/barrel, and Goldman Sachs predicting that prices could reach $150 to $200 a barrel over the next 6 months to two years, I am beginning to suspect that our government is a) living in cloud cuckoo land b) in peak oil denial or c) knows something that we don’t.
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