At what price?
I asked my boyfriend this morning, “at what gasoline price are you going to give up driving?”
His answer was “maybe when it hits 50 baht per litre, then I’ll start taking a taxi”.
Whether it’s $100/ bbl now for 30 baht/litre of gasoline, or a $200/bbl for 50 baht/litre (taking account of the anticipated dollar depreciation), the oil price will keep going up as long as you keep paying.
With the surging inflation via food prices and other products, the consumers have yet to step back (or if they have, not in a significant way). Many countires in Asia, still have oil price subsidies, particularly large consumers such as China, India, Indonesia and Malaysia. Although China can/wants to move away from these subsidies, it prefers to buy it off as the Olympics is approaching.
In the absence of political events, I would expect crude oil prices to slip in the near term due to weaker demand in Europe, but a continued annual increases in oil price until 2010, or whenever my boyfriend decided to stop driving.
One response so far
The gasoline price is $1.04/liter here in Russia and still raising
And I think I’ll never drop my car due to gasoline price. Instead I’ll raise my income.