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| High Oil Prices Stir Discontent Globally |
| 2004-10-24 |
| PARIS, Oct 24, 2004 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- Grumbling about high gas prices, Sri Lankan businessmen ditch their cars for the bus. Strikes over fuel costs shut down cities around Nigeria. Would-be vacationers in France put off their getaway plans. Anger has yet to explode into mass demonstrations, but the pockets of disgruntlement could be a sign of more worry to come if oil prices continue to hover around record highs. Fears about supply from top oil-producing countries and the increasing appetite of emerging economic powers like China and India have helped drive up crude oil prices about 80 percent from a year ago. Help - however limited - is on the way in some corners: A Berlin tabloid is publishing a daily list of the cheapest gas stations around town to fill up. "The most likely effect on the consumer is to say, 'We're going to spend less on other items,"' like travel, or gifts in the holiday season, said Robert Rochefort, who heads a Paris research center on the quality of life. Frogs will be taking more dips in their own frog pond. In France, where taxes account for about four-fifths of the pump price, fishermen, farmers and truckers have taken aim at the government. In the latest protest, ship captains paraded at a snail's pace along the Seine River in Paris, demanding cuts in tax on gasoline and diesel fuel. Near Munich, police have counted about 100 cases of customers driving off without paying after filling up at gas stations in the last two months. Fuel was siphoned from parked vehicles more than 20 times. |
| Posted by:Mark Espinola |
| #2 Fears about supply from top oil-producing countries and.. There's that word again - "fears"... In France, where taxes account for about four-fifths of the pump price,.. Gotta pay for all those social programs somehow. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2004-10-24 8:17:49 PM |
| #1 I wonder when governments will start giving directives to oil refineries to start refining abundant "heavy sour" (high sulfer) crude oil. It will happen when the greater cost of that refinement is less than the "light sweet" market. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2004-10-24 8:09:27 PM |