OPPENHEIMER: Goldman was wrong about $200 oil and they'll also be wrong about $20 oil

Oppenheimer issued a note on Thursday arguing that oil is looking for a "new normal" price around $65-$75 a barrel.

But on the way to making their point, the firm also took a huge shot at Goldman Sachs' history of getting calls on the price of oil very wrong.

On Thursday, Oppenheimer wrote:

We dismiss the $20 oil scenario, as we dismissed the $200 oil view in 2008-both came from the same source. We think oil prices will remain lower for longer, until the objectives behind the collapse are met, and we don't see this happening any time soon. We think the market is still searching for the new normal, which is not $50 and is not $100 either, but more likely in the $65-$75 range.

That "same source" is Goldman Sachs.

Earlier this month, oil analysts at Goldman Sachs said that in a worst case scenario, oil prices could be headed to $20 a barrel as the market flushes out oversupply from OPEC and US suppliers who kept pumping oil despite a more than 50% crash in prices in the last year.

The 2008 call Oppenheimer refers to is the now-infamous assertion by Goldman that oil would rocket up to $200 a barrel as part of what was then called the "demand shock." Recall that back in the middle of the last decade, the big idea around oil was that we'd reached "peak oil," and were doomed to run out of oil much faster than the world was ready for.

Under this idea, oil prices were rising and would reach a new, permanently high plateau.

However, US shale activity in the last few years has turned this thesis on its head as US output surged.

And while oil, of course, is still a scarce resource, fears about "peak oil" have been headed off.

As for its broader point on Thursday, Oppenheimer thinks OPEC, the 12-member oil cartel led by Saudi Arabia which has most seriously felt the squeeze from lower oil prices, probably overplayed its hand by dismissing the US shale revolution.

Oppenheimer notes that shale production from the US has boosted global production by about 4 million barrels per day, or about the combined output of Kuwait and the UAE.

Ultimately, the firm thinks OPEC's economies will be forced to diversify, live within their means, and embrace a "new normal" for the oil market.