Earlier this year we reported on comments made by an Indian minister that he thought oil could hit $150 a barrel this year. At the time he seemed to be over-exaggerating the danger – but with oil closing in on $120 a barrel last week – that unthinkable level suddenly feels, well, thinkable. Then along comes OPEC, with a new water level. OPEC president Chakib Kheli was quoted in Algeria’s El Moudjahid newspaper yesterday as saying he believed oil could hit $200 a barrel. $200 a barrel – that would be a staggering level – proof, one would have thought, that we are running out of black gold. Yet OPEC has long maintained that there is no danger of that. That the high price of oil is down to other factors – not least a lack of refinery capacity – and that there is no need, or indeed point, in it upping output. So how then do you square the one view from OPEC that there is plenty of oil, and the other view that it could hit $200 a barrel?