mr. pickens, it's karen fin r erman. are you surprised haven't seen this demand equation move in that some supply just comes off the market? >> well, i mean -- okay. i've been surprised that the producers have kept drilling. natural gas wells. and so i think you're going to have to lay down some rigs if you want to get the price above 250. but right now tremendous demand for natural gas. the heavy duty trucks are moving to it. navistar, they announced two weeks ago they're building a 12 liter engine that will be out shortly. all this is going to happen. if i'm running an 18 wheeler, 20 to 30 gallons a year which is common for class six to 18 wheelers. you're talking about saving $30,000 to $50,000 a year on fuel cost. >> folks watching this show right now, they're listening to you and me and others saying heck i got to protect myself against rising oil prices. go out there and make money off it. sounds to me like we're saying we can't drill our way out of this, can we? >> drill our way out of it? we've got more oil than

mr. pickens, good to see you. what do you make of the high gas prices? what's at the bottom of this?> well, it's going to go up because you -- the gulf supply for oil is tight. and so we import 12 million barrels a day. it's in the gulf of mexico. so two points i'd like to focus on is the staud dees who claim to have 2.5 million of barrels a day spare capacity. they were opening up an oil field and they are going back to open up the oil field that's been shut in for 75 years. why? >> because you would see them opening up the field? >> the result? they are trying to get more oil. they need it. the market needs it. the market is tight and so there's not an oversupply of oil. >> but you said it was crappy oil? >> that's right. that's what they have left. it's low gravity. high sulfur crude and they would have opened that up. that means that that is what they are down to. >> so how great a role are the speculators making as to why we are seeing a spike in gas prices, particularly here in the states. of course, around the world we may be at the lower end of gas prices that we're experienc