World oil market chronology from 2003

From the mid-1980s to September 2003, the inflation adjusted price of a barrel of crude oil on NYMEX was generally under $25/barrel. Then, during 2004, the price rose above$40, and then $60. A series of events led the price to exceed$60 by August 11, 2005, leading to a record-speed hike that reached $75 by the middle of 2006. Prices then dropped back to$60/barrel by the early part of 2007 before rising steeply again to $92/barrel by October 2007, and$99.29/barrel for December futures in New York on November 21, 2007. Throughout the first half of 2008, oil regularly reached record high prices. Prices on June 27, 2008, touched $141.71/barrel, for August delivery in the New York Mercantile Exchange, amid Libya's threat to cut output, and OPEC's president predicted prices may reach$170 by the Northern summer. The highest recorded price per barrel maximum of $147.02 was reached on July 11, 2008. After falling below$100 in the late summer of 2008, prices rose again in late September. On September 22, oil rose over $25 to$130 before settling again to $120.92, marking a record one-day gain of$16.37. Electronic crude oil trading was temporarily halted by NYMEX when the daily price rise limit of $10 was reached, but the limit was reset seconds later and trading resumed. By October 16, prices had fallen again to below$70, and on November 6 oil closed below $60. Then in 2009, prices went slightly higher, although not to the extent of the 2005–2007 crisis, exceeding$100 in 2011 and most of 2012. Since late 2013 the oil price has fallen below the $100 mark, plummeting below the$50 mark one year later. As the price of producing petroleum did not rise significantly, the price increases have coincided with a period of record profits for the oil industry. Between 2004 and 2007, the profits of the six supermajors – ExxonMobil, Total, Shell, BP, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips – totaled $494.8 billion. Likewise, major oil-dependent countries such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Canada, Russia, Venezuela and Nigeria have benefited economically from surging oil prices during the 2000s.