In today s dollars, a barrel of crude oil collected from America s seeps in 1859 cost more than $350. It was something of a bargain. Whale oil had shot up to more than $1,000 a barrel, and crude was proving better for lamps, once distilled to kerosene using a process touted by Yale professor Benjamin Silliman. In August of that year Edward Drake drilled 69 feet below Titusville, Pa., to find rock oil far more abundant than the seeps. A drilling rush ignited, and just two years later crude had crashed to $12 a barrel.

That was the first of three great dramas for oil s price in America. The second came more than a century later, when a cartel of Arab oil exporters declared a U.S. embargo (1973), and Iran s Shah was ousted by Islamic revolutionaries (1979), and crude jumped sevenfold. The third, in which crude rose from less than $20 a barrel in early 2002 to $147 last summer, happened for less-clear reasons, which makes its recent aftershock prices are up 80% since February all the more worrisome.

Are we headed for oil drama No. 4 (or if you like, a continuation of No. 3, after it was briefly interrupted by global recession), or is oil just throwing a final fit before it settles back to $30?

As with any good, that depends on supply and demand. For oil, the two are difficult to judge. Demand depends on global economic growth, and the extent to which the spread of oil-saving technology, like electric cars, offsets that of oil-consuming technology, like $2,500 gasoline cars in India. This year, the world is expected to use 3% less oil than last year, but such declines are rare. Supply refers not just to how much crude we ve sucked up and set aside (rich countries are storing almost 20% more than average), or to how much is still in the ground, but also to how costly remaining deposits are to exploit. Pools located far below Arctic ice would cost far more to get at than those just below Saudi desert. Oil mixed with sandy muck costs more to process than light sweet. Reservoirs governed by fickle populists carry added risk, and thus added expense.

Call on experts if you like, but good luck choosing among them. We re at $63 a barrel now. Veteran oilman T. Boone Pickens sees $75 this year and $200 within five years. Saudi Arabia s state oil company sees a vicious spike brought by low investment. The U.S. Energy Information Administration expects prices to drop $5 or so. The New York Mercantile Exchange reports a sharp increase in options bets on a fall below $50 a barrel by July. This last indicator can t quite be called bearish. For every trader buying such a bet, there must be one selling it. But it might mean that oil is poised for a big move by August, just in time for the 150th anniversary of that first Titusville find.

Wall Street s energy analysts seem to expect heaps of excitement ending in big profits. They expect earnings for energy companies in the S&P 500 index to plunge 67% this year but soar 88% next year a wild ride. If they re right, big oil producers, whose shares have lost 25% in a year but still look expensive next to meek earnings forecasts, are in fact cheap compared with next year s results.

I m never keen on relying on analyst forecasts. Two things make this one easier to accept. First, oil companies pay generous dividends, which will console shareholders if the gains don t materialize. Second, oil is priced in dollars, making oil producers at once a hedge against a run-up in real crude prices and a hedge against a frittering away of the currency s value. Below find five major oil stocks and their dividend yields. Note the gap between this year s price/earnings ratios and next year s.