Ha ha! Just in time for a flood of electric, hybrid and general 'eco' cars. Talk about being wrong-footed. This is what happens when you let scum speculators drive a commodity that everyone needs to a multiple of its true supply/demand market price. There was no shortage, just forward option speculating, tankers loaded kept off-shore and naked, criminal ramping by Goldman Sachs and other banks/brokers who had lent hedge funds billions to play with the oil price whilst at the same time declaring 'the $200 barrel will be here by end of the year(2008)'; remember that?
Oil by rights should be down around $30/barrel or lower, its long-term trend price. So what happened to the excess, up to $120 per barrel or up to 40p per litre extra we all paid out in the last year or so? Well, we know the UK exchequer raked in billions in extra VAT and oil company corporation tax but what of the rest. It didn't all go to the Sheikhs. The well-head cost of a barrel is and has been for ages around $5-10. Who was raking the bulk of $100 a barrel at 80 million+ barrels a day for best part of a year? The best part of 3 trillion dollars? Perhaps that explains why some OTT, carbon lash-up from Aston Martin sells out within hours at a ticket price of £1 million.
Lastly, once the price of a litre falls back below £1 expect renewed calls from Greenpeace and many other do-gooding parasitic taxers to ramp up the fuel duty by restarting the 'escalator', so that the world doesn't melt, again. Parky innit?
