Word: pricing
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...bail out banks. Thousands lost their jobs or their homes, or both. Yet amid the gloom there was one reason to celebrate as the year ended: filling your car with gas got cheaper with each day. After hitting a high of $147 a barrel in July, world oil prices have crashed to their lowest levels since 2004. By Jan. 7 the cost of oil for February delivery was around $43 a barrel - less than half the price of a year earlier. Goldman Sachs last month predicted that the price could sink to as low as $30 by March...
...everyone is applauding the return of cheap oil. Oil-producing nations that raked in billions over the past few years now face a reckoning. Governments that didn't set aside any of their windfall, or shortsightedly budgeted on sky-high prices - and more than a few fall into both categories - are grappling with tumbling revenues. The reality of lower oil prices for countries such as Iran, Nigeria, Russia and Venezuela in 2009 is likely to include political unrest, massive cuts in public spending, and rocketing inflation and unemployment. "The brutality and speed of the price decline is a huge shock...
...That shock is just starting to hit the world's fourth-biggest oil producer, Iran. The price crash has pummeled Iran's foreign earnings, 85% of which come from its shipments of 3.8 million barrels of oil a day. Last summer the country was garnering about $300 million a month from oil and natural gas. This month it's likely to make just $100 million, according to Saeed Leylaz, an economist in Tehran who edits the business newspaper Sarmayeh...
...After months of upbeat assurances, Ahmadinejad finally admitted last month that economic problems had compelled him to recalculate the 2009 budget to reflect an oil price between $30 and $35 a barrel rather than $60. He also drafted a bill to scrap lavish fuel and electricity subsidies, which give Iranians some of the world's cheapest gas (just 36¢ a gallon), even though it has to be imported from foreign refineries. The move is a high-stakes gamble for the President, who is up for re-election in June and is already cast by his opponents as the cause...
...Halfway around the world, Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez is confronting a similar predicament. Two years after Chávez won his third term, Venezuela faces a deep recession. The price Caracas gets for its oil has dropped some 70% since July to about $31 a barrel. That has left Chávez with about half the money he budgeted to spend in 2009, and doesn't take into account the millions of dollars Venezuela will lose each month if it abides by recently agreed OPEC production cuts...