Oil prices rose to a record $127.43 Friday morning amid new concerns about supply and after Goldman Sachs increased its forecast to $141 per barrel for the second half of 2008.

Goldman upped its forecast by 32%, saying oil prices will average $141 in 2008 and $148 in 2009, citing supply constraints and the lack of scalable substitutes, Bloomberg News reported Friday.

Oil surged on the news before easing back to $127.33. The other major energy commodities also jumped in early Friday trading. Heating oil added 5 cents to $3.67 per gallon, unleaded gasoline jumped 6 cents to $3.22 per gallon, and natural gas climbed 13 cents to $11.53 per million BTUs.

Economist Glen Langan told BloggingStocks Friday that Goldman Sachs' increasingly bullish outlook for oil is not good news for consumers or the U.S. economy.

"This is the first time that I can recall that a major investment bank has mentioned the supply dimension to oil. Up to now, we've been talking about emerging market demand, but if in fact supply will not increase at modern-day historical rates, this is not a good sign for U.S. GDP growth," Langan said. "We're counting on ample supply growth to contain these already high oil prices."

Langan said he expects oil production to grow at least 1.5-2% per year, while Goldman sees it at 1% per year. "If Goldman is correct, prices will rise to over $140 per barrel in the quarters ahead this year, and probably higher, that would put the average price of gasoline in U.S. easily over $4.25 per gallon," he said.

'Rude slap in face' for Americans

Furthermore, the above is a "rude slap in the face for Americans" Langan added, because they're getting nothing in return for what appears to be a sustained conservation effort and behavior change regarding gasoline consumption.

"We've got U.S. gasoline consumption down on a year-over-year basis for about three months and other clear signs that consumers are cutting back their needless driving, but Americans have received no benefit in return. In fact, they've been penalized because during that time gasoline prices have risen about 60 or 70 cents a gallon," Langan said. "It's bitter fruit and you can understand why drivers would be frustrated."

Still, Langan underscored that conservation will be rewarded, eventually. He said that at some point, subsidies notwithstanding, "demand destruction will occur in emerging market countries" taking some of the demand pressure off the price of both oil and gasoline.

Langan also expects both auto/truck engine efficiency technology and substitute fuel efforts to accelerate in the quarters ahead, as it becomes increasingly clear that high fuel prices will be a permanent feature of the U.S. economic landscape.