The IEA fears that lower oil prices will create a situation where even less money and effort is put into expanding oil supplies. The agency pointed to 2007, which was one of the best years for investment in new oil supplies. In 2007, companies invested a massive $390 billion in new oil supplies, but this was short of what the IEA felt was needed -- $450 billion.

As prices fall, there is less and less incentive for companies to pump new money into oil supplies, and the IEA predicts that the long term results of such decisions will lead to prices that by far eclipse the record oil prices that we saw earlier this year.

Its figures are rather disturbing. According to the IEA, production in current fields is declining by 6.7%, and that rate is only increasing. Based on that, in order for oil supplies to keep up with current demand, if we look out towards the year 2030, for supplies to maintain the level of demand there would need to be 45 million barrels of oil found and produced each day over the next 22 years. That is assuming that oil demand does not rise in that same period of time. Not a likely assumption, and in fact, the IEA predicts that daily demand of oil will rise from 85 million barrels a day now, up to 106 million barrels a day by 2030. You can do the math on what impact that will have on oil prices.

What many experts fear is that there are not many, if any, really big oil fields left out there. Other than some big fields that have yet to be explored under the arctic circle, there haven't been too many big finds lately, a fact that means adding daily production is only going to get harder and harder for oil companies.

So while we are enjoying falling oil and gasoline prices for now, we have to always remember that the world's supply of oil is finite, and as we go through more and more of it, recent record high prices could look cheap in comparison to what the future holds in store for us.