I wonder what the cost of premium will end up at away from the metro areas? the following are a couple of extracts form an article published in Newsweek, 7/9/04 (Bulletin) .. Oil prices are rising for broader, structural reasons. The world may have to get used to expensive oil. The largest ingredient in current oil prices has been a massive increase in demand. This year's growth is double what it has been for the past six years (on average) While demand is up, supply can't rise much. For a variety of reasons, almost no oil-producing country has "surplus capacity" In 1973, the United States imported one third of its oil from abroad. Today it imports two thirds But the more lasting solution to America's oil problem has to come from energy efficiency. American demand is the gorilla fueling high oil prices-more than instability or the rise of China or anything else. Between 1990 and 2000 the global trade in oil increased by 9.5 billion barrels. Half of that was accounted for by the rise in U.S. imports. America is consuming more because it is growing more--but also because over the past two decades, it has become much less efficient in its use of gasoline, the only major industrial country to slide backward. The reason is simple: three letters--SUV. In 1990 sport utility vehicles made up 5 percent of America's cars. Today they make up 55 percent. They violate all energy efficiency standards because of an absurd loophole in the law that allows them to be classified as trucks. Rockit
