The future price of oil? Pick a number

The invasion of Iraq cost the world $6 trillion in higher energy prices alone. Geoffrey Lean reports.

Mamdouh Salameh believes the oil price would now be no more than $US40 a barrel, less than a third of the current price, if not for the Iraq war.

An oil economist adviser to the World Bank and the UN Industrial Development Organisation, Dr Salameh says that among the world's biggest oil producers, Iraq alone has enough reserves to increase flow substantially. Production in eight others - the United States, Canada, Iran, Indonesia, Russia, Britain, Norway and Mexico - has peaked, he says, while China and Saudia Arabia, the remaining two, are nearing the point of decline. Before the war, Saddam Hussein's regime pumped 3.5 million barrels of oil a day, but this has fallen to just 2 million barrels. Read more.