This column was originally published on RealMoney on Feb. 23 at 8:02 a.m. EST. It’s being republished as a bonus for TheStreet.com readers. For more information about subscribing to RealMoney, please click here.

There’s a lot of yawning about oil hitting the highest price of the year. That’s wrong.

There was a tremendous amount of press when oil took out $60 and headed to the low $50s. Now it looks like that occurred strictly because of unseasonably warm weather, not because of a cessation of demand.

I am an out-and-out oil bull for the long term, and I blame that view on doing too much work! That’s right — because of the two stocks I have in Action Alerts Plus.com that are oil-related and because I would like to boost that number, I listen to the calls, and they are all about an inability to find any new oil of consequence coupled with a voracious worldwide demand that hasn’t been quelled by the so-called alternatives.

To me, this $60 level is becoming the norm. If that is the case, you will see a lot more drilling and a lot higher dayrates as it dawns on a lot of companies and nations that even if they have to pay $500,000 dayrates for big rigs, it might very well be worth it.

I also think that those companies that were hoping to make their EPS bottom lines on energy savings are gravely mistaken. It is a testament that the airlines are actually well-run that they aren’t tanking right now, but I would want to ring any profits I had — I agree with Doug Kass on AMR (AMR) , by the way — just to be sure that I wasn’t surprised by a quick spurt to $63-$64, well within the realm of possibilities. In the meantime, many of the integrateds have once again come down to prices that are just too attractive to avoid.

Oil’s done going down big. This is the new level. Get used to it. Adjust portfolios to fit it. Go buy some Halliburton (HAL) .