Posted: July 11, 2008

Everyone has an oil price prediction nowadays, but few are made by analysts as knowledgeable as Kevin Petak of ICF International, a consulting company that specializes in energy policy and markets. Petak models where energy markets are headed next – and how soon they’ll get there.

Petak’s models are telling him oil prices will “correct” down to the $70-to-$80-a-barrel range, but not nearly soon enough for price-pressured consumers and countries. He told EnergyTechStocks.com that a “depressed” economy will eventually drive prices down, helped out by the psychological uplift of the arrival of plug-in electric hybrid vehicles (PHEVs) starting in 2010.

“I don’t for a minute believe that $140 oil is sustainable” over the long term, Petak said, emphasizing that a “technological shift” powered by PHEVs would eventually start turning things around.

Investors will have to weigh Petak’s forecast against the far gloomier forecast of Charles Maxwell of Weeden & Co., who doesn’t see relief for perhaps a decade or longer, as well as against forecasts made by a number of Wall Street firms that believe oil is mostly a speculative “bubble” that may pop shortly. Petak’s forecast, which is based on fundamental issues over supply and demand, is closer to Maxwell’s. Both see oil-related economic problems lasting for years.