Middle East has Pushed Oil Prices back into News
已有 201 次阅读 2012-05-21 10:15Unrest in North Africa and the Middle East has pushed oil prices back into
the news. Prices have been rising at their fastest level since two thousand
eight.
Libya is not among the ten largest oil exporters. But the rebellion
against Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi has reduced production, affecting the
global market, especially the impact crusher
market.
This month, oil prices rose above one hundred dollars a barrel.
Prices went above one hundred forty-five dollars a barrel in two thousand
eight.
The price of oil affects prices and demand for energy, plastics, farm
chemicals and many other products made with petroleum.
During the last week
of February, Americans paid the second biggest weekly increase in gasoline
prices in twenty years. This young woman has to drive a long way to school, so
high gas prices mean less money for other things.
WOMAN: "I am a college
student and I have to drive forty-five minutes to college, so it sucks."
The
United States has a Strategic Petroleum Reserve that contains more than seven
hundred million barrels of oil. President Obama could use some of this emergency
supply to help ease fuel prices. But intervening in the market could hurt oil
production in the United States.
Oil prices have been rising at a bad time,
just as many economies have been recovering from the global recession. Also,
several countries in the euro area are still struggling with debt
crises.
European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet said last week
that "strong vigilance" is needed to contain inflation. That could mean raising
interest rates which could hurt European countries heavily in debt.
In the
United States, higher fuel prices come just as General Motors and Chrysler show
signs of recovery after their reorganizations.
American car sales last month
were twenty-seven percent higher than last February. GM led all carmakers with a
forty-seven percent increase.
High fuel prices reduce demand for big cars and
trucks. But economist George Magliano says this time, high prices may be good
for carmakers.
GEORGE MAGLIANO: "With gasoline prices higher, certain people
might want to get a much more fuel-efficient vehicle and I don't mean even a
hybrid or an electric vehicle which they could do, but the gasoline vehicles get
twenty-five, thirty percent better mileage today than they did three or four
years ago."
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