Era of cheap oil is over

If you thought things couldn't get any worse than a collapse of the global financial markets, think again. The economic meltdown is a good reason to be gloomy, for sure, but an under-reported study by the world's leading energy agency recently raised the spectre of a collapse in the global energy market too.

The steep fall in oil prices during the last few months of 2008 prompted many people to think that the run-up to $147 a barrel was an aberration – driven by speculators or another artefact of the credit bubble. But some industry analysts say that today's prices are the real ...