John Hofmeister, former president of Shell Oil, doesn't think the plunge in oil and gasoline prices will last much longer.
Both have dropped to five-year lows in recent days. U.S. crude traded at $47.19 Tuesday morning, and regular gas prices averaged $2.05 a gallon.
"The next round of high prices is likely to start later this year, as crude rebounds to the $80s and $90s, perhaps pushing to the $100 level by late in the year or early next," Hofmeister, founder and chief executive of Citizens for Affordable Energy, told
USA Today.
Growing global demand and a slowdown in output will fuel the rebound, he said.
"If new production capital is deferred and demand growth continues at 2 percent or more, we'll see capacity constraints during 2016, an election year of course, drive prices higher. Whether we reach $4 a gallon or push past, it's too early to tell."
But he expects $5 gas by 2020 "and possible shortages of fuel in some parts of the world."
"Enjoy the price, because it's going to go back up."
Meanwhile, legendary short seller Jim Chanos, founder of Kynikos Associates, says oil's drop has put major oil companies such as Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell in a world of pain.
He told
CNBC that he has shorted oil majors for a couple years.
'The fracking and shale revolution was propelling us [the United States] to be the largest oil producer in a way that I thought was uneconomic and still is uneconomic for the drillers," he noted. "The days of finding cheap oil is over."
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