Rita's Wrath May Be At The Gas Pump

www.latimes.com
The millions of Texans who fled Houston and other Gulf Coast cities to avoid Hurricane Rita are likely to pay higher prices for gasoline -- if they can find it -- on their return trips home.

And even if Rita's damage to Texas and Louisiana oil refineries and pipeline operations proves to be less than was feared, motorists around the country still face the prospect of at least another short-term spike in pump prices, analysts said.

Pump prices, which are already 47 percent higher than a year ago at $2.75 per gallon, could once again climb above $3 a gallon nationwide, analysts said. Supply snags are most problematic for the Gulf Coast, but markets in the East and Midwest are also vulnerable.


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independent.co.uk

Oil reserves are double previous estimates, says Saudi

Saudi Arabia, the biggest oil producer, and Exxon Mobil, the largest oil company, yesterday declared that the world had decades' worth of oil to come, in an attempt to calm fears about the record prices experienced in recent weeks.

Forming a powerful alliance, the Saudi oil minister Ali al-Naimi said, at an industry conference in Johannesburg, that the country would soon almost double its "proven" reserve base, while Exxon's president, Rex Tillerson, spoke of 3 trillion or more barrels of oil that are yet to be recovered.

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