We are not returning to an era of cheap energy.

It was three years ago, an eternity in the foggy world of commodities trading, when Arjun Murti, a New Jersey native and analyst at Goldman Sachs, published a research note that competitors charged was riddled with irresponsible conjecture.


On a day when oil was trading at $55 (all U.S. figures) per barrel, Murti projected a "super spike" in which a barrel of crude could fetch $105 in the next few years.

Kevin Kerr, owner of the New York commodities research firm that bears his name, branded Murti's report "nothing more than hot air." An investors' blog suggested darkly that Murti was involved in a conspiracy to jack up the value of his firm's oil investments.

Today, Murti's projection seems almost timid. On March 6, the price for crude oil - the heavy liquid that refiners transform into gasoline and other fuels - stormed past $105 on its way to a peak close of $145.29 in the first week of July. By Thursday, the price had settled back to a still very expensive $115.01 - up 56 per cent from a year earlier. The speed of the upward movement and the seeming strength of its staying power above $100 per barrel has shocked nearly everyone.