It was only a few months ago when $100 a barrel for oil seemed to be a height just beyond the market's grasp. Now, get ready for $110, $120, or, just possibly, according to analysts at Goldman Sachs, $200 a barrel oil.

Also on Portfolio.com: Crude Realities How the weak dollar changes the game. World of Oil A look at the biggest oil producers and consumers. The Coming Crash Why the surge in prices ignores economics.

Today, oil jumped 2 percent, to $107.44 a barrel, in morning trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. he national average price of a gallon of gas rose 0.7 cent overnight to $3.222 a gallon, 69 cents higher than one year ago, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service. Last May, prices peaked at $3.227 as surging demand and a string of refinery outages raised concerns about supplies.

Last week, when oil touched $104 for the first time, Rex Tillerson, the chief executive of Exxon Mobil, said the recent surge was "pretty crazy," according to Dow Jones. He attributed a third of the run-up to the weak dollar, a third to geopolitical uncertainty, and the rest to market speculation

Many investors, seeking alternatives to slumping stock markets and frozen credit markets, have been shifting money into commodities, especially oil.

"The disconnect between slowing U.S. growth and a soaring commodity/energy complex has truly been quite remarkable,"  Edward Meir of MF Global told Reuters.

Daniel Yergin of Cambridge Energy Research Associates and others have noted how the U.S. economy is less dependent on energy than it was at the time of the oil shocks of the 1970's For high oil to play a similar role in a sharp economic slowdown, he says, prices would have to average $100 to $120 a barrel for six months to a year.

But we are gradually getting closer to that range.

In a report on Friday, the energy research team at Goldman Sachs, who had surprised investors three years ago by forecasting the possibility of oil as high as $105 a barrel, raised their targets.

They now see oil averaging $95 a barrel this year and $105 next year. They add that a strong recovery in the U.S. economy or a significant disruption to supply  "could lead to $150 to $200 a barrel oil prices."

The White House announced today that Vice President Cheney will leave next week for a trip to Saudi Arabia, as well  as to Oman, Israel, and Turkey.  Oil prices will be high on his agenda.