Energy reality starts to bite

By Dilip Hiro

(Note: This article was written before Tuesday's fall in the oil price - the biggest drop in one day in 17 years. Light, sweet crude plunged US$6.44, or 4.4%, to settle at $138.74 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.)

When will it end, this crushing rise in the price of gasoline, now averaging US$4.10 a gallon at the pump? The question is uppermost in the minds of American motorists as they plan vacations or simply review their daily journeys. The short answer is simple as well: "Not soon."

As yet there is no sign of a reversal in oil's upward price thrust, which has more than doubled in a year, cresting recently above $146 a barrel. The current oil shock, the fourth of its kind in the past three-and-a-half decades, and the deadliest so far, shows every sign of continuing for a long, long stretch.