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Isn't the oil and gas industry at its peak?

The Oil and Gas Industry is doing well. As everyone knows, the price for oil has gone up significantly over the last years. Within every kind of market, the price is set and set by the supply and demand balance. At the moment countries such as India and China are booming markets. Their economies are growing with big numbers every year. As their economy continues to grow, so does the demand for gas and oil. This also means that the production facilities must expand. The current consumption of oil in the world is nearly equivalent to the total amount of production facilities- and for this reason relatively small events in the world can have a big impact on the oil price at the moment. Wars and other major events such as hurricane Katrina have an even bigger impact on the price since they created great concerns and worries for the buyers, which pushed the price further up.

In the near future the fragile balance between supply and demand will not fade so quickly. The demand for oil is still increasing in western countries, but also in the fast growing countries such as India and China.

Although prices are high at the moment, when seen on the historic scale this does not mean that the price is indeed high when compared to the current market situation and future of oil reserve. Some say oil should be double or quadruple of the current price to fill the gap between oil and renewable energy sources, but higher prices will automatically make alternative energy resources more economical.

Currently it is expected that the world's demand for oil will increase about 2% per year in the first 25 years of the 21st century, according to the Energy Information Agency of the U.S. government. This makes it very clear that oil and gas companies will have to increase their production facilities to pump more oil and refine it into the products needed to keep the world economy going and growing.