Alas, I don't think they can sustain the US$80 per barrel rate for long. The reason is simple: those high prices will actually cut demand, and before you know it there will be a major surplus of oil soon, which will force the price under US$60 before you knew what happened. Even the Chinese and Indian economy will not fare well at those high prices.
Dunno, the price of oil ramped up from $62~ per barrel to $74/barrel pretty easily.
And it doesn't look like the price will fall back to the $62~ per barrel range anytime soon. So the next time the Mad Mullah or the Venezualan Virus speaks, I'd expect the market to follow it's consistant pattern, which is to raise the price of oil.
So the $74/barrel goes up again and holds at that price. Repeat ad nauseam.