Text 28692, 155 rader
Skriven 2007-05-07 18:17:04 av Mimi Gallandt (1:123/789.0)
  Kommentar till text 28680 av Jeff Binkley (1:226/600)
Ärende: Gas prices
==================
Jeff Binkley -> All wrote:
 JB>
http://biz.yahoo.com/cnnm/070504/050407_gas_demand.html?.v=1&.pf=family-home


 JB> CNNMoney.com
 JB> Where gasoline is cheap, and why it's making yours pricey
 JB> Friday May 4, 3:12 pm ET

 JB> By Steve Hargreaves, CNNMoney.com staff writer



 JB> In Saudi Arabia gasoline costs about 45 cents a gallon. In Iran it's 33.
 JB> Venezuelans pay under a quarter.
 JB> These absurdly low prices are a direct result of massive government
 JB> subsidies.

 JB> While these numbers are not adjusted for cost of living, it's fair to
 JB> say that
 JB> drivers in those countries are getting a good deal.


 JB> But it's straining government budgets. More importantly, it's not
 JB> allowing the
 JB> free market to do its job. Higher prices on the open market are not
 JB> leading to
 JB> a drop in demand, which is keeping the cost of oil high for everyone else.

 JB> "Roughly two-thirds of new oil demand is coming from countries that have
 JB> subsidized oil markets," said Christopher Ruppel, a senior geopolitical
 JB> analyst
 JB> with the consulting firm John S. Herold. "So demand is not going to be
 JB> affected
 JB> if oil goes from $60 a barrel to $80."

 JB> By no means does this let motorists in the Untied States off the hook.
 JB> Gasoline
 JB> consumption in this country has been rising even faster than normal,
 JB> around 2.5
 JB> percent annually over the last couple of months, despite average prices
 JB> over $3
 JB> a gallon, close to an all-time record.

 JB> But countries where consumption is rising the fastest may be surprising.

 JB> With it's white hot economy, it's no surprise China tops the list. The
 JB> country's oil demand is projected to grow 7.5 percent this year,
 JB> according to
 JB> statistics provided by Ruppel.

 JB> Ruppel said China still has gasoline subsidies, although lately the
 JB> government
 JB> has been trying to whittle them back. The average price for a gallon of
 JB> gas in
 JB> Beijing is $2.44 a gallon, according to the research group AIRINC, which
 JB> provided all the gasoline price numbers in this story.

 JB> But the second highest demand growth isn't in the fast growing economies
of
 JB> India or Brazil. It's Saudi Arabia, projected to consume 5.6 percent
 JB> more oil
 JB> next year, according to Ruppel.

 JB> Iran is number three, guzzling 3.3 percent more.

 JB> Russia and Egypt, which Ruppel said both have heavy gas subsidies, are
also
 JB> high on the list.

 JB> And the raw numbers aren't small either. The Saudis used over 2 million
 JB> barrels
 JB> of oil per day in 2006, and the Iranians used 1.7 million. India, a faster
 JB> growing economy with far more people, used 2.5 million. (By comparison,
the
 JB> U.S. used about 24 million barrels a day, nearly 10 times as much as India
 JB> despite having a population nearly four times as small and an economy just
 JB> three times bigger.)

 JB> "Maybe it's adding up," said Lou Pugliaresi, president of the Energy
Policy
 JB> Research Foundation.

 JB> Pugliaresi said his group hadn't done any particular studies on
 JB> subsidies and
 JB> how they relate to worldwide demand growth and prices, but added "There
are
 JB> places where it's serious, and some of those populations are big enough
 JB> to make
 JB> a difference."

 JB> Katherine Spector, head of energy strategy at J.P. Morgan, said the bank
 JB> did a
 JB> study on price supports and demand a couple years back. Not only was
demand
 JB> rising fastest in countries that had subsidies, it also greatly scaled
back
 JB> once the subsidies were reduced, such as in Thailand and Indonesia.

 JB> "A subsidy tells consumers they don't need to adjust their behavior," said
 JB> Spector.

 JB> Of course, subsidies are just one factor contributing to high oil and gas
 JB> prices, noted Adam Sieminski, chief energy economist at Deutsche Bank.

 JB> Sieminski pointed to all the the other reasons why oil prices are high,
 JB> among
 JB> them rapid worldwide economic growth, limited supply and not enough
 JB> refining
 JB> capacity.

 JB> But, he added "to the extend that it creates demand, it's helping push
 JB> prices
 JB> higher for everyone."

There is still a ton of oil under LA, San Pedro stinks even 20 miles away on a
breezy day. Mexico has more oil than they know what to do with. I was in Alaska
(for the USO) in the mid 70s while they were building the pipeline, the amount
of money spent to do so is staggering (I don't know the figures. but I do know
that they were paying maids who took care of the construction workers $1500 a
week to cook and clean for these guys). Based on the outrageous outflow of cash
on the project I don't believe that they would have spent that much if it was
going to become too expensive to use in less than 30 years. I also don't
believe that Texas and Oklahoma have run out either.

In Los Angeles there's a site humorously named the La Brea Tar Pits (the humor
is that la brea is Spanish for tar pit <g>) they've been digging Woolly
Mammoths and Saber tooth Tigers out of that pit for at least 200 years. I took
my oldest grand daughter there when she was 5, she loved it but said she didn't
want to come back because it stinks. :)

They have a site where you can read about them:

http://www.tarpits.org/




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Mimi

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