Aggressive buying by speculators and cold weather in the northern hemisphere also helped to propel the price of oil to its all-time record on New York's Nymex exchange. Oil prices climbed 57 percent in 2007, and many fund managers braced for another year of volatile and rising commodity prices.
Crude oil -- the source of petrol, diesel and heating oil and a major component in the manufacture of plastics and packaging -- is a major determinant of costs for almost all businesses.
A hike in crude prices, as well as feeding through into fuel prices at the pumps, is likely to be inflationary and could slow the speed at which the Turkish Central Bank is able to cut benchmark interest rates further this year.
Despite oil rocketing to $100, the US government said it would not open up the nation's emergency crude reserves to bring down prices, while Libya and Qatar said the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was powerless to halt the rally. Indonesia's OPEC governor warned on Thursday that oil prices could climb to the $100-$110 level and said the cartel might decide to increase output at its Feb. 1 meeting in Vienna if supply was insufficient, although an Iranian official reiterated there was no shortage of supply.
Sohbet Karbuz, a former expert at the International Energy Agency (IEA) and a senior oil markets expert at the Union of Mediterranean Countries' Energy Companies, said he believed the increases in oil prices were mostly driven by speculative actions although the climate and geopolitical risks have had some effect. He said the speculators had made sell-offs before the end of last year to generate year-end profits and then again they began to pump up prices.
However, Karbuz said consumers had become more indifferent to oil prices, commented that as the general wealth had increased rapidly in recent years, the share of energy expenditures declined in total consumer spending. He said the IEA had been forecasting an economic crisis if oil prices rose over $45 per barrel in 2004. Oil prices were below $35 per barrel then. "But nothing had happened although the prices tripled," he said. Karbuz said, however, he was concerned that economists would blame the rising oil prices for the credit crunch started in summer 2007. He pointed out the reason was definitely not the oil prices. Abdurrahman Satman of İstanbul Technical University said it was hard to say when the rising prices would stop, but noted that this would definitely affect inflation in Turkey. He said Turkey's daily consumption was around 600,000 barrels, 99 percent imported, and that an increase of a single dollar would cost Turkey more than $500 million per day.
Satman said the government has two choices, whether it may reflect the rises directly to consumer prices or forego some of the tax it imposes on gasoline and diesel, currently among the highest in the world.
İsmail Aytemiz, chairman of Turkey's sixth-largest oil distributor, Akpet, said the US must take action against the rising prices. He said that as long as the US remains reluctant to intervene, OPEC would not increase oil production to ease prices. Aytemiz said that as regards Turkey, the excise tax, which is around 70 percent, on oil products must be reduced; otherwise, industrialists that need energy for their production will face trouble. Oil prices have nearly tripled since 2003, driven by rising demand in China and other developing countries, tight stockpiles and geopolitical turmoil. And some saw big gains ahead.
"In the next five years or so oil prices rising to $200-$250 a barrel would not surprise me," said Puru Saxena, a Hong Kong-based money manager overseeing more than $370 million in assets, half of which are invested in commodities. As the price of crude oil reached a new high, investors fled to the traditional havens of gold, which Wednesday soared past $850 an ounce for the first time since Soviet tanks invaded Afghanistan in 1980.
Benzer Haberler 
National
