In case you believe that those who are proclaiming the end of oil are a bunch of Chicken Littles, consider the following.

• Last week Shell Oil announced that it could not find enough new reserves to keep up with the rate at which it was pumping out existing fields. That is, the amount of oil in the ground is declining — at least as far as Shell can exploit it.
• According to the 30 April 2006 edition of Energy Alert “Even though Exxon is growing production strongly, it has been earning less from the incremental barrel. In other words, production is increasing for Exxon but it’s costing more per barrel to produce, for a number of reasons.
• Demand for oil by India and China continues to rise, bumping up against the also escalating needs of the U.S.

These are just three of the indicators buried in the news that support the idea that gas prices may fluctuate day to day, largely for political reasons, but the long term and inevitable trend is up.