NO MAN'S LAND: The four year hiatus As long as the world can produce as much oil as it did three years ago in 2007, there should be no shortages until 2012 and so oil prices should be steady through 2011. This year demand for oil is accelerating quickly out of the downturn, but global consumption is not expected to match the last monthly peak in late 2007 until June next year at close to 88 million barrels a day. The financial crisis has brought a four year long hiatus in the evolution of the oil market during which demand fell and recovered and when oil prices both soared and plunged. The price of oil is likely to remain close to $80 a barrel for the next 12 months as the market crosses the no man's land between pre-crisis growth and recovery to previous levels of economic activity.