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Informed City opinion has it that last year's extraordinary spike in the oil price was to blame for the economic crisis we find ourselves in and that rising fuel costs arguably hurt companies and consumers far worse than the credit crunch.
The price of oil, which in July 2008 peaked at $147 a barrel, sent many companies' operating costs soaring. That meant services and goods became more expensive, which consumers were loathe to pay for and sent corporate revenues into freefall. It was only when this was overlaid by the collapse of the banking system that what was already an acute crisis became the worst recession in 80 years.
So what of the oil price that has spiked once more, hitting $75 a barrel? Forget a V-shaped bounce-back economic recovery and instead, say some, look at the V-shaped oil price graph. The harbingers of doom are flocking and analysts who made their name predicting last year's superspike are chirping again about the $100 barrel.
But worryingly there are at least 10 reasons to fear a surging oil price - and what that means for motorists, householders' energy bills and the price of goods in general:
Confidence
The economic and corporate worlds are a more confident place than they were. The Bloomberg Professional Global Confidence Index has jumped to a near two-year high with optimists outnumbering pessimists. That does not necessarily translate into corporate well-being or investment but it is a change of mindset.
The return of risk
Fund managers are reporting a nascent trend in investors looking for something more. Months of parking money in safe havens is being replaced by a return of the appetite for risk and the search for yield. Just look at the extraordinary run up of world stockmarkets in recent months.
US tanks are emptying
Oil inventories in the US have been steadily declining: the surplus of crude in storage has fallen to less than half the peak reached in April. If America starts importing again the oil price will go up again - it doesn't fall when Uncle Sam comes buying.
Growing global consumption
Predictions of a collapse in global oil consumption have weighed heavily on the market for months. Those forecasts appear to have reached their nadir after the International Energy Agency reversed its previous options and raised its demand outlook for this year and next. The world, says the IEA, will need 85.25 million barrels of oil a day next year, 70,000 barrels more than previously estimated.
China and others
China, the world's largest emerging economy, has the power to move prices. In late spring when China was stockpiling oil reserves the price surged from below $50 to more than $70 in six weeks. The same will be true when India, Brazil, Mexico, Turkey, Indonesia and Vietnam begin re-emerging, consuming more than they produce.
Peak oil or the days of shooting fish in a barrel are long gone
Peak oil theorists who reckon the world is running far shorter of hydrocarbons than currently feared have been spooking the market for years. However, the picture is not all gloomy. BP jumped yesterday after it announced a "huge" oil find in the Gulf of Mexico, containing up to three billion barrels.
But peak oil buffs were quick to dismiss the BP find as little more than a drop in the ocean. Recently, US analyst Bernstein Energy published a research note entitled The Days of Shooting Fish in a Barrel Are Long Gone. "Quite simply, the world has forgotten how hard marginal production [ie the difficult fields] gets hit in the years following an industry down-cycle and a reduction in capital spending," it argues of the global producers outside Opec.
"For years oil companies have been living off the spoils of the major oil regions of the world through the application of standard technologies to prolific areas that were out of bounds for many decades, such as Russia. In the last upcycle, non-Opec production growth was like shooting fish in a barrel. But no more, as this time around it will take even higher prices to turn on the most marginal incremental production, and the easy technology wins are long gone."
Its synopsis is bleak: exploration and development activity in the US, the world's third-largest producer, is falling; Canadian production is stalling as oil sands projects are deferred; much heralded Brazilian production in the deep waters of the southern Atlantic is not expected any time soon; there is insufficient investment in Russia, the largest producer in the world after Saudi; and there is an accelerating rate of decline in production from mature fields such as the North Sea.
The power to fix prices
All eyes are on OPEC, the cartel which accounts for the bulk of the world's known reserves. When it meets later this month it is not expected to loosen production quotas. If this remains the case in the coming months as world demand begins to rise it will squeeze the oil price upwards.
It's still the economy stupid
From Washington to London to Beijing, the global economy is being revived by government-backed artificial stimulus packages. The oil industry would be mad not to take its free share of indirect taxpayer handouts.
The weakness of the greenback
The perception that the dollar was shot played a significant role in the extraordinary commodities boom in 2008 as the weakened greenback boosted the attraction of dollar-denominated commodities like oil. The dollar has rallied but is still at historically weakened levels. There are no guarantees that after the end of the Barack Obama honeymoon the dollar will not weaken again.
The self-fulfilling prophecy
Some of the acutest minds in the world's most important investment banks believe oil is heading back toward last year's superspike. Barclays Capital's Paul Horsnell was the single-biggest oil bull at the beginning of the year, even after the oil price had collapsed 75%, and he's sticking with his call of over $100 a barrel next year: "The grounds are being laid for a sustained push to the upside and we suspect that changes in the demand dynamic will serve as an important cue."
Goldman Sachs's Arjun Murti was feted when his predictions of January 2008 came halfway true (oil was at $100 and he said it would double before the year is out). Murti's latest note states: "As the developing world increasingly begins to consume like Westerners the demands placed on the finite resources of the planet increases.
"As the commodity markets rebound with the broader global economy we expect a redux of 2008 when severe supply constraints forced the rationing of demand through sharply higher prices to keep the market balanced."
The trouble when respected commentators make predictions is that people start believing them and acting accordingly. The fear is a prolonged high oil price - and we are already at historically high levels - will only fuel inflation and serve to prolong a global recession. Or what was known in the Thirties as a Great Depression.
