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-- more on -- Price of Gasoline
From: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2003 16:59:36 -0400
Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2003 15:07:50 -0500 From: John Lyon <jelyon () mac com> Subject: Re: [IP] Price of Gasoline To: dave () farber net http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/ 0,6903,1028320,00.html?=rss...but the real reasons for the longevity of high oil prices are not in the Middle East but in Louisiana and China. In that southern US state and in neighbouring Texas lie huge salt-lined caverns that house America's strategic petroleum reserves. After 11 September 2001, President Bush said he wanted to increase the oil in the reserve from 600 million barrels to 700 million barrels by the end of 2005. This huge cache of black gold would serve as emergency stocks should any unfriendly country choose to halt exports, or should there be a repeat of Venezuela's political turmoil, which hoisted oil prices above $35 in December. Then President Bush stopped adding to the reserve to alleviate pressure on the oil price. In May, he turned the taps back on again and the US administration has been paying top dollars - of more than $30 a barrel - for 11 million barrels of oil. Democratic senator Carl Levin accused the Bush administration of foisting high oil prices on the world. 'This administration's actions to fill the [reserves] regardless of the price for oil available to the commercial sector, is a major reason for these high prices,' Levin said in a letter to the US Energy Secretary, Spencer Abraham. But the administration has stuck to the plan, despite a slump in oil inventories at refineries to within 3.4 per cent of the 28-year-lows reached in February. 'In effect, the Department of Energy's [reserves] programme has transferred 10 million barrels from private sector inventories into the [reserves] over the past two-and-a-half months at significant cost to taxpayers,' said Levin.-- John Lyon - visit http://jelyon.net see what I'm on about today
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