The Winning Side.

It's the winning side
And everybody's cheering for the winning side
And the children leave their homes to join the winning side
And when Jesus comes He'll march on with the winning side
And we've got all the right answers on the winning side


Lyrics: Oingo Boingo

It's getting a little crowded in the "oil's going higher" club, and I'm getting nervous.

Fadel Gheit of Oppenheimer - A year ago he said prices were nuts and based on speculation, now he says demand is strong and prices may well go higher.

Lee Raymond of ExxonMobil - Earlier this year he was saying prices were not justified by the fundamentals he saw, now he's saying it may take 2-3 years for prices to work themselves out.

Peter Beutel of Cameron Hanover - Not long ago, he thought the tide had turned against higher prices and prices would turn down to $40, now he's talking demand is high and prices will likely continue higher.

James Cramer of Mad Money - Pushing the drillers and most oil and gas stocks like there's no tomorrow.

Tobin Smith of Changewave Investment - This weekend on Bulls & Bears a raging oil bull. This guy is short term top city.

Tim Evans of IFR - Worse, even Tim Evans is getting less shrill.

Crude oil advances to new record.

Quotes:

There has been "much additional talk" this week about the "strain of keeping up with demand for crude oil, which grew 3.5% in 2004 and is generally expected to slow to 2.2% to 2.3% this year," Tim Evans, a senior analyst at IFR Markets wrote in a note to clients.

The market exhibits an "appetite for ever higher inventories that has lapped up an additional 24.2 million barrels of [Energy Department] commercial stock over the past year along with 33.7 million barrels that flowed into the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve," he said.

Given that, traders have also been "led to believe that our creaking infrastructure of pipelines and refineries is being stretched to the breaking point," he said.

But Evans pointed out that despite the market's appetite for oil, "there is still no sign of supply disruption or physical shortage."