Goldman also raised its 2005 and 2006 New York Mercantile Exchange crude price forecasts to $50 and $55, respectively, from $41 and $40. A Reuters poll showed that analysts on average expected a mean price for 2005 of $45.49 a barrel.

The analysts revised their super-spike range to $50-$105 per barrel from $50-$80 previously, noting demand and economic growth in the United States and China especially.

While oil companies benefit from rising crude prices, a diverse mix of companies including Delta Airlines, Continental Airlines, trash company Allied Waste, rail operator Burlington Northern Sata Fe Corp. and Kellogg Co. have all warned of fuel costs.

Airline industry analyst Robert Mann said the consequences of oil reaching $105 would be so disastrous to the US economy that it is difficult to isolate the airline industry within that scenario.

"It's bigger than that," he said. "I think it would ruin the economy. It would be catastrophic."

However, Tom Bentz, an analyst at BNP Paribas Commodity Futures Inc., said $100 oil "is possible, but anything is possible.

"With OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) capacity only a million (barrels per day) away from their limits and demand rising, add a major outage somewhere and sure it's possible," he said.

David Healy, auto analyst at Burnham Securities, said oil at that level would probably translate into a $1.21 per gallon hike in US gasoline prices. Gasoline prices at the pumps are already running at a record average over $2.10 a gallon.

"For the high-income guy it's probably not going to make any difference in his buying or driving habits," Healy said. "If you raise gasoline prices that much you're putting a tax on the lower-income people ... it's like a huge regressive tax on low-income people."

For airlines and other transport companies, the effects of higher oil are easily understood. For other sectors, though, it will also have an enormous effect.

"If crude hit $105 it would not be good (for mining)," said Victor Flores, senior mining and gold analyst at HSBC Securities. "Fuel or energy costs are 25 percent of costs in some operations."

The average spot price for gold last year was around $415 per ounce. Flores noted the average cost of mining that gold was $240 per ounce.

POWER PLAYS

The effect record-high oil prices would have on the power industry would be felt through similarly high prices for natural gas, which tends to rise and fall with oil.

Sanford Bernstein analyst Hugh Wynne said that power prices would likely surge in markets that depend heavily on natural gas for generation -- including New England, New York, California, Texas, Florida and the West.

He said high gas prices would be nearly immediately felt in deregulated markets, where companies could be expected to rapidly pass higher costs to customers.

"In those states, the impact of this would be higher power prices for consumers and higher profits for any generator that doesn't burn gas," Wynne said. He noted that higher gas prices would likely boost earnings at companies with large amounts of nuclear and coal generation in those markets, including TXU Corp., Dominion Resources Inc., Constellation Energy Group Inc. and Entergy Corp.

Separately, George Pipas, the chief US sales and market analyst at Ford Motor Co., said a great deal depended on when oil hit $105, since new technologies could mute the impact.

He said it could be devastating. "Then you've got issues that go far beyond the cost of gasoline. You've got the makings of what potentially could be a global recession, or depression, and at that point how much it costs to drive is kind of moot," he said.