Oil

There was a time when my father used to give me Rs.50/week for petrol for my bike. That was just 4 years ago. Petrol was “just” Rs.23/litre. Even at that time also I used to keep my bike on maximum mileage.

Now the situation is different. Yesterday only our honorable petroleum minister Mr. Mani Shankar Aiyyar had announced the hike in the petrol prices by Rs.3.33. By this the petrol prices are now Rs.50/litre. It is about 217% rise as compared to 2001. If we analyze this through the prism of simple rate then we find that annual inflation of Petrol was about 54% which is about 6.5 times more than the national inflation rate. And still the oil companies are selling it at the subsidized rate. My father told me that he can only give money according to national inflation rate. And now I am Rs.85 short of what petrol is costing me. This means that I have to increase the mileage of my bike 1.7 times more. Previously my bike used to give the mileage of 60km/litre. Now ideally it should be 102km/litre to cope with this situation. But practically no bike exists in India which can give this much mileage.

World oil prices are increasing day by day. There is a very abysmal oil production in Iraq, world’s second largest oil producer at one time. All because of the illegitimate war against Iraq. The oil production is affected by the improper governance. Different community groups are fighting against each other in Iraq and barring US there is no authority till now in Iraq. Major oil fields are in the Northern Iraq which is Kurdish area but the main sect in Iraq is Shias and it does not want too much Kurdish involvement in the government. Now when no one has the real power, there is no proper authority to control law and order situation there. And because of that many insurgents set fire to many oil wells in northern Iraq. As a result of this rest of the world is getting affected by low oil supply. Consequence - the roaring oil prices. The worst part of this is that US which has the power to control all this is not doing anything. How can it do? It has world biggest imbecile, George W. Bush as the president. He can’t even control order situation in Louisiana, so how can anyone think of him to control Iraq. He is worse than Richard Nixon. What did Bush thought when he attacked Iraq? He might have thought that he can control any thing in the world by world’s largest armed force and mightiest weapons. I still wonder how he became president for the second time.

Now India should not fall into the trap of US and put the Iran pipeline into backburner. That is the source by which India can meet its oil demands with a reasonable price. It has not been estimated that what would be the cost of Iran pipeline oil but it would definitely be less than the present oil prices. Both Saudi Arabia and Iraq are now US allies. If we keep on depending on them too much for the oil then it may happen that we have trade our sovereignty for that at some time. US citizens are at present no way in a mood to go for a war. So there is no chance of a war against Iran. Moreover US’ foreign policy first concern is North Korea. First it will tackle with North Korea then it will concentrate on Iran and obviously it will take time. It may also happen that the matter would be resolved in due course of time. Taking the worst case, if US attacks Iran, then also we can keep on trading with Iran. So in any case the pipeline is will be beneficial to us. And then I can hope for the reduced oil prices.