The future of oil prices

This podcast is from Times Online and is an interview with Jonathan Waghorn, of Investec Global Energy Fund, who “says the price of oil is set to rise over the long term, as it becomes increasingly difficult to find. This spells bad news for motorists, but good news for investors.”

Podcast: The oil price Times Online (4/8/09)

Questions

  1. Why have oil prices fluctuated so much over the past year?
  2. What is likely to happen to the price of oil over the next few months and why?
  3. Why is the price of oil likely to rise faster than the rate of inflation over the long term?
  4. How are the price, income and cross elasticities of demand and the price elasticity of supply relevant to explaining the likely long-term trend in oil prices?
  5. If the price of crude oil goes up by x per cent, is the price of petrol at the pump likely to go up by x per cent or by more or less than x per cent? Explain your answer.