Oil futures shot above $140 Thursday, June 26 after OPEC’s president said crude prices could rise well above $150 a barrel this year and Libya said it may cut oil production.

Chakib Khelil, president of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, said he believes oil prices could rise to between $150 and $170 a barrel this summer.

Khelil joined a long list of forecasters making frightening price predictions. Each new forecast — like Goldman Sachs’ recent prediction that prices could rise as high as $200 — causes a jump in prices as speculators drive up the price of oil futures.

The rising price of oil — and the accompanying surge in gasoline prices to a U.S. national average above $4 a gallon — has contributed greatly to the growing uneasiness about the U.S. economy. Consumers forced to pay more for gas and for food and anything else that needs to be transported have been cutting back their spending on non-essentials, and the fear in many quarters is that they will continue to curb their outlays.

Interest rates affect the dollar; many analysts believe the Fed’s rate cutting campaign, which began last September, had much to do with weakening the dollar against the euro and sending oil prices skyrocketing. The dollar slid against the euro after the Fed’s comments Wednesday, and was down again.