[IP] -- more on -- Price of Gasoline

[Dave Farber <dave@farber.net>]

> 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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