Why the World wide Oil price increase?
Maybe it’s the pessimist in me, but I somehow doubt the worldwide oil supply has taken a significant hit with the loss of the rigs in Katrina’s path. The way I see it is that the large interest, highly US centric oil companies have come out of this unfortunate situation with an excuse to raise gas prices to the level that will help soften the upcoming blow due to decreased supply with ever-increasing demand. US oil extraction is far, far lower than some of the OPEC nations. For instance, in 1996, US extraction accounted for approximately 8.6 billion barrels a day while the OPEC nations were producing over 64 billion barrels per day. The rate of consumption in the US is a lot higher than any other country on the planet. It accounts for almost 25% of the worldwide use of oil and, with those numbers, it is no wonder than the US relies heavily on importing energy resources (oil and hydro). I’ve read reports that pre-Katrina US oil extraction was at 97% utilization. With the hurricane, roug
