Yes, 1918! This is one incredible chart from the American Petroleum Institute illustrating the secular decline in real gas prices for the past century with episodes of periodic price spikes, which lasted a decade or so.
So what was it that caused the reversal in the 80-year secular declining trend and huge price spike, which began in 2002/03? Supply shock? Demand shock? A sudden epiphany about the potential rise of Chinese and Indian drivers?  Speculation?  Easy Monetary Policies?
We do find it interesting that it coincided with simultaneous price breakouts in almost all asset and commodity markets which eventually led to the 2008 economic and financial collapse. The sharp rise in home prices, collapse of credit spreads, flattening of yield curves, rise in commodity prices, strength of foreign currencies against the dollar, rally in global equity markets, and even the collapse of implied volatility all began in late 2002 – early 2003.
The credit bubble clearly gave the energy bull market its jump start and it seems just yesterday (1998) that we were buying crude futures at $10 per bbl.  Did the credit bubble accelerate the Chimerica story and its subsequent global monetary imbalances? Another interesting question/observation is that the last big spike in real gas prices, which began with the first OPEC supply shock peaked with the appointment of Paul Volcker as Chairman of the Federal Reserve. And to think the political hacks in the Obama White House neutered his influence. Shame on them!
We’re going to explore all these issues in future posts so stay tuned!
(click here if chart is not observable)
Global Macro Monitor 
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