But Zollars expressed surprise at the soaring price of barrels of crude oil. “I think there were very few people who would have predicted $100 oil,” he said.

Indeed, triple-digit oil prices have surprised most analysts. But accurate forecasts were available to trucking executives willing to put in a little effort:

“All in all, oil prices are likely to rise to triple-digit territory -- $100 a barrel at a minimum, and probably higher – by the end of the decade and possibly sooner.”
-- Stephen Leeb and Donna Leeb, The Oil Factor, Warner Business Books, 2004

“We’re going to look back at history and say $55 a barrel was cheap.”
-- Matthew R. Simmons, author of Twilight in the Desert, quoted in The New York Times Sunday Magazine, 2005. Simmons has a $10,000 wager with a journalist that the inflation-adjusted price of a barrel of oil in 2010 will be at least $200.

“A team led by [Goldman Sachs] analyst Arjun N. Murti repeated its assertion that the oil market is going through a ‘super spike’ and raised the upper range of its price forecast for such a spike to $105 a barrel.”
-- The Wall Street Journal, 2005.

“I think we might see $100 oil in the next five years. We won’t see $20 again.”
-- Sir Bill Gammell, chief executive of Cairn Energy, BBC, 2006

“Adam Sieminski, energy analyst at Deutsche Bank in New York, issued a July 28 report ominously entitled ‘$100 Oil Has Lost Its Shock Value’ in the futures options market.”
-- USA Today, 2006

-- David Martin