Oil Will Shoot Past $100 Per Barrel In 2011

Everyone is making predictions for 2011, most of which won't come true. In a couple of weeks, no one will care anyway, as they don't affect our day to day lives in any meaningful way outside of a select few. Here is a prediction for 2011 that will come true and will affect all of us and potentially crimp the global economic recover: higher oil. It's only a matter of time in 2011 that oil reaches the century mark, most likely sometime in the first half of the year. China and India are continuing to grow at healthy rates, and their voracious appetites for raw materials isn't going to end anytime soon. We are in Peak Oil, and while I won't bore you with the details, we're not going to find any major oil fields anytime soon, perhaps ever. Petrobras PBR Tupi well and Cernambi fields have 8.3 billion barrels of oil, but finds like are going to be few and far between going forward. This is going to affect all of us, as gasoline prices rise towards and move past $3.00 per gallon. Of course there are ways to play this, either by going long oil related names like Exxon Mobil XOM, Chevron CVX or Schulmberger SLB. You could also take advantage of the rise in oil prices by going long the Oil ETFs such as United States Oil Fund LP ETF USO or United States 12 Month Oil Fund, LP USL, as the price of oil continues its meteoric rise. Unfortunately this is one prediction that will come true which will not be a happy 2011 for all of us. Disclosure: no position in names mentioned, but that can change at any time.