Crude oil prices have come down by over 60% from their all time high figure of 147 dollars to a barrel just few months back. There are lot of experts who feel that the crude oil prices may not go up dramatically in the near future, due to following reasons :

The world’s largest market, US, is facing its worst recession in the last four decades. The unemployment rate is at all time high of 8.5% and more and more jobs are being lost in Government and private sector every month.

The second largest market, Europe , is facing far worse situation, and most of the major European countries are in deep recession (closer to depression?).

Japan is seeing its economy shrink by over 10% in the last quarter. China and India are also hit badly due to global recession impact.

OPEC countries are fighting amongst themselves to pump in more crude oil than what they have committed in their monthly meeting, just to meet their massive budget deficits. Their budget plans for 2008 estimated the price to be at least 80 to 90 dollars, whereas in the last six months, the crude prices have averaged only 45 dollars a barrel.

The above issues cannot change over night, and might take at least four to six quarters to reverse.

Thus , it will be fair to assume that the crude oil prices may stabilize in the 40-70 dollars mark over the next few quarters.