$800 before $60.

Calm down, just having a little fun. We've been steadily climbing the price ladder on predictions, I figured I'd cut to the chase and save myself a few posts.. [Just to be explicit: Nobody, including me, is predicting $800 oil. At least not this week..]

Boone Pickens actual quote was "$80 before $60". And he's still firm in his belief in Canadian oil sands and coal as investments. As production of conventional oil plateaus, the thought is that natural gas can be switched to a transportation fuel, leading to more demand for coal for electricity production. Nuclear eventually will kick in too, but that will take a while.

BusinessWeek: T. Boone Pickens: Still Courting Controversy.

Columnist Jim Jubak has a slightly different angle, but ends up in the same neighborhood as Boone Pickens.

MSN: Oil substitutes? Try these 5 stocks.

A couple of side thoughts of my own:

ICO, or International Coal Group, which is a turnaround play of Wilbur Ross, may finally have found it's footing. Note that Boone Pickens has never recommended this stock. He has recommended coal stocks BTU, CNX, and MEE.

JOYG is a sort of coal and oil sands equipment play that has done well for a while now.