DESIRE petroleum gets going at long last !

LONDON Arjun Murti, the Goldman Sachs Group analyst who roiled oil markets in March by saying crude could reach $105 a barrel, now says that forecast might be conservative if the "peak oil" theory is right and world supplies are running out.

The theory, which postulates that the world's oil supply is close to an irreversible drop, is no longer "on the fringes" of the market, according to a research report by the New York-based Murti, who forecasts oil prices of between $50 and $105 a barrel until 2009