How High Will the Price of Oil Go This Time?
10 March 2011
A gas station in San Diego, California, on Wednesday
This is the VOA Special English Economics Report.
Unrest in North Africa and the Middle East has pushed oil prices back into the news. Prices have been rising at their fastest level since two thousand eight.
Libya is not among the ten largest oil exporters. But the rebellion against Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi has reduced production, affecting the global market.
This month, oil prices rose above one hundred dollars a barrel. Prices went above one hundred forty-five dollars a barrel in two thousand eight.
The price of oil affects prices and demand for energy, plastics, farm chemicals and many other products made with petroleum.
During the last week of February, Americans paid the second biggest weekly increase in gasoline prices in twenty years. This young woman has to drive a long way to school, so high gas prices mean less money for other things.
WOMAN: "I am a college student and I have to drive forty-five minutes to college, so it sucks."
The United States has a Strategic Petroleum Reserve that contains more than seven hundred million barrels of oil. President Obama could use some of this emergency supply to help ease fuel prices. But intervening in the market could hurt oil production in the United States.
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