Sharky:

One of my great fears is that we will not come out of the current economic travails in a reasoned moderate way. My fear is that as recovery sets in, oil demand will pick up quickly in a reduced oil production industry state which cannot be addressed quickly by increased supplies due to shut in production. Such a shortage in turn causes an extreme spike in prices. That to me is the disaster scenario which turns a highly stressed global economic recession into something far worse.

A rapidly escalating oil price will be disastrous not only for consumers but also for the producers and I believe the world economic situation. Those most severely impacted economically under such a scenario will be the Western nations due to their highly debt leveraged vulnerability.

Brian