Will oil reach $100 a barrel?

The price of a barrel of oil has quadrupled in the last five years and it looks like it is going to keep rising. Tim Bennett looks at how soon oil will hit $100 - and how you can make money as it soars.

Just how expensive is oil? Very. In 2002 a barrel of oil would have set you back only about $20. Earlier this month the price of Brent crude hit just over $80 per barrel, a fourfold increase and, in nominal terms at least, a record. This prompted Goldman Sachs to reiterate their long-term view that the oil price will soon breach the $100 mark and Lord Oxburgh, the former chairman of Shell, to comment that the world is "sleep-walking into a very serious problem" that could, in his view, result in prices reaching $150 per barrel.

Why has the price risen so fast?

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Tim graduated with a history degree from Cambridge University in 1989 and, after a year of travelling, joined the financial services firm Ernst and Young in 1990, qualifying as a chartered accountant in 1994.

He then moved into financial markets training, designing and running a variety of courses at graduate level and beyond for a range of organisations including the Securities and Investment Institute and UBS. He joined MoneyWeek in 2007.