From Dr Ian Rutledge.

Sir, Your recent report that oil prices have reached an all-time nominal high and that Goldman Sachs has suggested the possibility of a "super spike" in prices to as high as $105 per barrel ("Crude at all-time high despite Opec's efforts", April 5) should be of no surprise to anyone who has studied the informed opinions of US energy experts in the period leading up to the invasion of Iraq. Nor, for that matter, to anyone who has seen my own observations on future world oil prices in my recent book Addicted to Oil.