Oct. 9--One of the few silver linings of the current economic cloud is the price of a barrel of oil has moderated.

Crude price are off about 40 percent from the highs last summer. Gasoline prices haven't followed crude prices yet, but are falling. Unleaded gasoline futures traded at below $2 yesterday on the New York Mercantile exchange. Natural gas has slid from its highs of more than $13.50 per thousand cubic feet to about half that.

According to a Bloomberg News report a director of the international Center for Global Energy Studies predicted the price of oil easily could fall below $80 per barrel and even $70 as a weakening global economy causes demand to deteriorate. Several OPEC nations are slowing down production in an effort to prop up prices; something one analyst thinks Saudi Arabia will avoid due to political pressure.

Less than a year ago, crude began its meteoric rise based on a growing world economy that was projected to tighten the gap between the supplies compared to the demand. Those rising energy costs rippled though the world economy and were a factor in the slowing of the economy as people scrambled to cope with unexpected increases in the cost of energy and products that relied on it for production.

Apparently we are on the way to coming full-circle. Speculators are getting hammered; oil is no longer the golden investment. Bloomberg reported the number of futures contracts held by traders is at a two-year low. It remains to be seen if gasoline prices will follow crude prices all the way down.

Based on what unleaded gas was retailing for in July, today's crude price would equate to gas in the $2.40 per gallon range. The market probably will correct itself; expect companies like Dow Chemical which passed along increased cost of petroleum used in its products to begin reducing prices to stimulate demand especially in light of the current economic situation.

However, the real danger is once oil, gasoline and natural gas prices stabilize well below their highs, Congress once again will lose focus on the necessity of developing and expanding our existing production and refining capacity and alternative forms of energy.

That has happened before and cannot be allowed to happen again.

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