The dire prediction comes as energy analysts toss out a string of frightening predictions about the rising price of oil in the short term. Oil has topped $90 a barrel, and JP Morgan Chase & Co. earlier this month predicted oil could hit $120 a barrel by the end of 2012. At the same time, the national average gasoline price is about $3 a gallon for the holiday season.
But former Shell executive John Hofmeister offered a more aggressive estimate, saying Americans could be paying $5 a gallon in two years. And he predicted that sometime between 2018 and 2020, supply and demand will become so out of balance that gas stations in several regions of the country will simply start to run out. "I think it's going to be a cumulative problem that won't happen suddenly," Hofmeister.
He predicted the problem would start with "stockouts" at select gas stations during the summer and during bad weather and then spread. He said those states farthest from refineries would get hit the worst and that in order to maintain some consistency, local and state governments might resort to the kind of rationing they employed in the early '70s.
With this kind of possibility on the horizon, Hofmeister, who earlier aired his concerns in an interview with Platts Energy Week, criticized the administration for cracking down on domestic oil drilling in the wake of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
"It is pure politics that keeps us from drilling more of our own resources," he said.
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