If the BP oil spill crisis in the Gulf of Mexico has achieved anything, it is to turn public opinion overwhelmingly against the major oil companies and their perennial quest to increase profitability at the expense of the environment but how long will this shift in sentiment endure? Not long, according to Atlantic Energy Research advisers.

The consensus among the firm’s specialists is that consumers in general and American consumers in particular will continue to berate BP and other oil majors while the price of a gallon of gasoline remains significantly below the $4 level seen in the summer of 2008 when a barrel of West Texas Intermediate light, sweet crude fetched $147 a barrel. Back then, anguished consumers pressured politicians who in turn pressured auto-makers to redouble their efforts to build more fuel-efficient cars instead of the so-called gas-guzzlers so near and dear to the hearts, minds and right feet of American motorists. Since then, however, the price of oil has tumbled reaching a low just above $30 a barrel. The global economic downturn gave rise to a new term amongst commentators; “demand destruction”.

The drastic fall in the oil price saw gasoline prices plunge back to $2+ a gallon as well as a return to old habits. The folly of suburbanites covering the 100+ mile round-trip commute to work and back quietly returned as motorists shelved plans to buy more fuel efficient vehicles, grabbed the keys to the V6 and V8-engined freeway-stormers and slipped back under the comforting, reassuring blanket of low gas prices.

Although the price of a gallon of gasoline has steadily increased since the lows, Americans still feel indignant enough to round on BP’s disastrous oil spill which, at the time of writing, has been pumping thousands of barrels into the Gulf for nigh on two months and has frustrated efforts by the firm’s eminently capable engineers to cap the flow.

The Obama administration has embraced the wave of anti-oil major sentiment and rolled out its populist response, announcing a moratorium on deep water drilling for six months, promising to hold BP morally and financially responsible for cleaning up the mess, instigating Senate committee hearings and even considering bringing criminal charges against BP and other stakeholders but Atlantic Energy Research believe that the furor is guaranteed to vanish once the price of oil begins pushing towards the $100 a barrel mark again.

Atlantic Energy Research believes that the current backlash against the industry as a whole has presented investors keen to gain exposure to the secular bull trend in oil with an opportunity to acquire stocks in oil majors in general and BP in particular at low valuations. The firm reasons that despite the advances continually being made in alternative fuels, the fact remains that fossil fuels will endure as the most accessible form of fuel on the market for decades to come and, as the global economy recovers, the price of oil will retest its record highs and deep water drilling will make a quiet if not warmly-welcomed return.