The International Energy Agency is preparing to release a report that will sharply downgrade forecasts of future oil supplies, mainly due to restrictions on capacity investment by oil exporting governments. It also projected growth in global demand of 1.2% this year as reductions in the U.S. and Europe are more than offset by strong demand growth in India, China, and the Middle East. News of the report helped push oil over $135 a barrel in Thursday trading and is likely to fuel argument that price increases are a product of long term structural change and not short term financial speculation.

Snapshot asks, can OPEC be pushed to invest in more than token capacity expansion?

Wall Street Journal - Energy Watchdog Warns Of Oil-Production Crunch
Bloomberg.com - IEA Plans to Lower Oil Supply Forecast in Next Annual Report
New York Times - New Fears on Long-Term Global Oil Supplies
Bloomberg.com - IEA Is Studying Output Depletion at Oilfields to Gauge Supply
International Herald Tribune - International Energy Agency urges OPEC to produce more oil