Record Price of Oil Raises New Fears - New York Times(Gas Prices)

The price of oil jumped to yet another record yesterday, sparking predictions that motorists would see sharply higher gasoline prices by Thanksgiving and fears that $100-a-barrel oil is no longer such a distant prospect. Oil traders, discussing the latest rise, cited a potential conflict on the border between Turkey and Iraq that could heighten Middle East tensions and possibly affect oil supplies from the region. Oil prices have more than quadrupled since 2001 as strong demand for oil from Asia, the Middle East and the United States has outpaced the ability of producers to bring on new supplies. After adjusting for inflation, oil prices are getting closer to historic levels reached in the early 1980s, when an energy crisis, the Iranian revolution, and the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war sent prices spiraling to about $100 a barrel in today’s dollars. They include refinery bottlenecks in the United States, a weak dollar, geopolitical threats in the Middle East, the war in Iraq, violence in oil-producing Nigeria, and resource nationalism in Venezuela and Russia that is driving away foreign oil investment. read more

[Tags]oil, prices, energy, iraq, supplies, analysts, gas prices[/Tags]

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