The Independent
By Danny Fortson, Business Correspondent
Wednesday, 11 June 2008

The chief executive of the world’s largest energy company has issued the most dire warning yet about the soaring the price of oil, predicting that it will hit $250 per barrel “in the foreseeable future”.

The forecast from Alexey Miller, the head of the Kremlin-owned gas giant Gazprom, would herald the arrival of £2-per-litre petrol and send shockwaves through the economy. His comments were the most stark to be expressed by an industry executive and come just days after the oil price registered its largest-ever single-day spike, hitting $139.12 per barrel last week amid fears that the world’s faltering supply will be unable to keep up with demand.

Mr Miller’s prediction is well beyond even the most heady market forecasts, the most extreme of which fall between $150 and $200 per barrel, and was explained only by vague references to demand from the developing world. It nonetheless stoked an already febrile atmosphere of growing public anger across Europe over a soaring fuel cost that is wreaking havoc at nearly every level of the economy.

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