TORONTO — Gasoline at $1.50 per litre is "in the near future'' for Canadians, economists at CIBC World Markets are warning.

The investment bank said Thursday that global oil supply will increasingly have trouble keeping pace with demand, and by 2012 that could send prices at the pump up by 50 per cent.

The report, penned by CIBC World Markets chief economist Jeff Rubin, cites surging consumption in developing economies combined with increasingly rapid depletion of existing oilfields and delays in getting new oil supplies on stream.

The widening demand-supply gap could push crude oil prices as high as US$150 a barrel by 2012, said Rubin, who in 2005 was among the first analysts to predict the $100-a-barrel oil price that materialized this month.

Rubin suggested global supply could slide below U.S. Energy Information Agency estimates by as much as eight million barrels a day within five years.

That prediction was echoed by Bob Tebbutt, a commodities watcher and vice-president at Peregrine Financial Group. But he said gasoline prices were likely to climb even more than Rubin's projected 50-cent increase.

"Only $1.50?'' he said. "My god, it's gone up 15 cents over the last five months.''

Tebbutt said commodities markets are sending the price of gasoline higher and he doesn't see any sign of it easing.

"I don't see the slowdown in the U.S. as a serious cause of slowing down globally,'' he said.

The CIBC World Markets study examined nearly 200 oil projects scheduled to start up over the next five years, and found that production timelines are "far too optimistic'' and delays are becoming the norm.

"You need to run faster to stand still,'' he said.

"Of the existing fields in the world today, we're going to have to find about 20 million barrels a day more in the next five years just to make up for what we're going to lose from depletion from those fields.''

Rubin cautioned that the industry is becoming more reliant on offshore oilfields, which deplete twice as fast as conventional fields.

He also said companies are facing high development costs in some countries because of royalty agreement renegotiations.

The rise of car ownership in countries like Russia and China has boosted fuel demand there, but he said an even more important factor is "massive price subsidization'' by governments in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

This has spurred consumption within OPEC, he says, and means it cannot expand exports to fill surging demand in developing countries.

But the rise in gasoline prices could keep the Canadian economy moving ahead.

"There's going to be a lot of economic activity ... generated in Western Canada. Much of that will ultimately be recirculated throughout the national economy,'' Rubin said.

Tebutt said oilfields are already trying to push their output levels higher, which could mean more jobs and a continuing boom in Western Canada.

"With trading at these levels, they're doing all they can to increase production. That's the problem, they can't increase it fast enough,'' he said.