The more Freeview prospers, the harder it gets for BSkyB to meet its target of 10 million subscribers by 2010.James Murdoch, the chief executive, is confident he can do it, and to be fair, he's certainly on target. Eventually new development at even $50 a barrel will look parsimonious. It may be nearer than we think.Freeview's threat to BSkyBThe ambition of all businesses is to run their rivals so hard that they eventually go to the wall Yet it's not always such a great idea That's what BSkyB did to ITV Digital. When the doomed pay TV broadcaster finally went under, Sky was offered the opportunity to turn it into a Sky Lite product, but turned it down.Freeview was spawned instead and with the infant now grown to full bodied adolescence, Sky must be starting to wonder why it ever allowed the service to be born at all.

The excess of capacity created during the boom will further depress the oil price, making the new development look even more uneconomic than it did before.All the oil majors say they are determined not to repeat that mistake again. It will be interesting to see how long they manage to hold the line, for it may indeed be possible that the world has changed. New demand from Asia coincides with a time when the world's productive capacity could be starting to peak Lord Browne for one does not hold this view. He thinks the world is still a long way from peak production. Yet the truth is that no-one really knows, and the more oil that is burned in the meantime, the more quickly that point is reached. When finally it does, as likely as not the economic boom will be over and the oil price in retreat.

As the world economy booms, the oil price rises, encouraging oil producers to throw caution to the winds and invest heavily in new development This can take anything up to five years to bear fruit. This still stands at a recession fixed $20 a barrel, which looks far too low for a world with oil at more than $50.Lord Browne, the chief executive, insists he has quite enough investment opportunities at $20 a barrel to see him through to retirement, and in any case, he's learned from experience that it rarely pays to raise the benchmark to accommodate a possibly short term spike in the price.In the past, oil has conformed to a well worn pattern. Yet even BP, which is better placed on this front than most, isn't replacing its oil reserves as fast as it is expending them, and that's with production largely flat. Eventually, even BP is going to have to bite the bullet and raise the benchmark set for new investment. Out of this, the company was able to spend $2bn on buy-backs and the same again on dividends.Round at the Treasury, Lord Browne's namesake, well nearly anyway, can only look on and weep. As he surveys his empty coffers, the bumper profits enjoyed by the oil majors will look a tempting target, yet beyond a timing adjustment to the payment of corporation tax, he's already promised he won't try to tax the excess.BP is in the happy position of enjoying the fruits of past investment at a time of record oil prices. This is especially the case as more than 70 per cent of the equity is owned by French nationals.Whatever the answer, decision time looms.

The arrangement under which interest on the debt is paid in "stabilisation notes" convertible into equity comes to an end shortly, as does the minimum usage agreement with the railway companies. Then at the start of 2007 Eurotunnel has to start making repayment of principal. Thankfully, the one thing we don't have to worry about is the only one that really matters - whether the Channel Tunnel will continue to operate. It will, for as I say, the capital has already been sunk and the tunnel is built All the rest is just argument over scraps. Under the Channel Tunnel Treaty, debt holders must ask the permission of the British and French governments to wipe out the equity holders and put in new management.The French government in particular might be swayed by the argument that as nasty little Anglo-Saxon hedge funds, the debt holders deserve no mercy and certainly cannot be judged fit and proper to run the main artery between France and Britain.