The wheeler-dealers and quasi-wildcatters who pioneered the field have been replaced by engineers talking efficiency and managers describing manufacturing processes.
The effect of such an oil spike would be to line the pockets of OPEC nations (and U.S. wildcatters and Russian potentates) with greenbacks while applying a brake to any nascent growth in the world economy.
From small wildcatters to oil-services giants, the petroleum industry is bracing for bad times now that the Obama administration has put a six-month moratorium on deepwater oil exploration in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico disaster.