2011 in O&G

FP‘s editors are rounding up predictions for 2011 from their bloggers, so here are a couple thoughts from me on my beat: First, with Russia’s petro-driven geopolitical power shaken underfoot by uncertainty in its key European natural gas market, Vladimir Putin will step up his two-year-long public relations campaign and announce that he will seek ...

FP's editors are rounding up predictions for 2011 from their bloggers, so here are a couple thoughts from me on my beat:

FP‘s editors are rounding up predictions for 2011 from their bloggers, so here are a couple thoughts from me on my beat:

First, with Russia’s petro-driven geopolitical power shaken underfoot by uncertainty in its key European natural gas market, Vladimir Putin will step up his two-year-long public relations campaign and announce that he will seek to return to the Russian presidency in elections scheduled in 2012. In a swap of the so-called "tandem" of Russian power, current President Dmitry Medvedev will declare that he will be honored to serve as prime minister.

Meanwhile, oil prices will flirt with $100 a barrel, but stay generally in the $80 to $95 range because global crude oil stockpiles will remain at historic highs. This will temper the price of gasoline at the pump, and help the global economic recovery advance. But another global speculative bubble will form, this time in metals, driven by these same expectations of economic growth. What these traders always seem to forget is that all bubbles eventually burst — but no one knows precisely when.

<p> Steve LeVine is a contributing editor at Foreign Policy, a Schwartz Fellow at the New America Foundation, and author of The Oil and the Glory. </p>

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