Click on the headline (link) for the full text.
Many more articles are available through the Energy Bulletin homepage
Cheap and cheerful: Venezuelans cling to right for petrol at 42p a tank
Rory Carroll, Guardian
Cost borne by environment and the poor as government remains wedded to subsidy
—
There is a world where oil costs $100 a barrel, where motorists wince as they fill up the tank and where energy efficiency is a mantra.
And then there is Venezuela. At a Caracas petrol station last week, Gloria Padron, a paediatrician, ticked off items that would cost about the same as the 60 litres of fuel gurgling into her Land Cruiser.
“Let me think. A Magnum ice cream. A cup of coffee. A cheese and ham arepa [sandwich]. Small stuff like that. Can’t say I’ve ever really thought about the price. Why would you?”
When a litre costs 0.7p, and filling the tank of a 4×4 costs 42p, it is a fair question. Petrol is so cheap here – reputedly the cheapest in the world – as to be almost free. Even under the artificially overvalued official exchange rate, petrol is 45 times cheaper than in Britain.
(18 January 2008)
Probability of U.S. recession growing: energy secretary
Suleiman al-Khalidi, Reuters
The probability of a U.S. economic recession is growing and high oil prices pose a significant problem for the world’s largest energy consumer, U.S. Energy Secretary Sam Bodman said on Thursday.
Bodman said global oil supplies were not as high as the United States would like but he stopped short of echoing President George W. Bush’s call for OPEC to boost supply earlier this week.
(17 January 2008)
Related: US urges ‘well-supplied’ oil markets (AFP).
Crude Oil Falls for Fourth Day on Signs U.S. Is in Recession
Angela Macdonald-Smith and Sophie Tan, Bloomberg
Crude oil fell for a fourth day in New York, to below $90 a barrel, on concern the U.S. economy is in recession, cutting fuel demand in the world’s biggest energy consumer.
U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said yesterday that the outlook for U.S. growth in 2008 `has worsened.’ The Commerce Department said builders in December started work on the fewest houses since 1991.
(18 January 2008)
