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3/4/12

Energy Prices: Plateau Oil meets 125m Chinese cars - by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

Oil is not supposed to ratchet defiantly upwards in a downturn, which is what we have with the Euro zone facing a year of contraction in 2012, and much of the Latin bloc sliding into full depression. Japan‘s economy shrank in the fourth quarter.
Asia’s emerging powers of Asia - the key force driving the commodity boom of the last decade - are in various stages of “soft-landings” after hitting the monetary brakes last year to check property bubbles and curb inflation. China’s manufacturing has been bouncing along near contraction levels through the winter. So what happens when it recovers?

The issue is not whether Iran has the military kit to close the Straits of Hormuz and cut off 18pc of global oil shipments for more than a few days (probably not), but whether an Israeli/US attack on the regime’s nuclear facilities would later set off an uncontrollable chain of events in the Middle East.

The West has the disquieting experience of watching crude soar even as we languish in stagnation. This never used to happen. If we faltered, energy costs would fall too, acting as a stabilizer. This harsh new reality is going to become uncomfortable when the emerging world enters a new cycle of growth, leaving us behind. Rising utility costs have already raised the numbers of householdsfrom Britain in poverty from a fifth to a quarter.


For more: Plateau Oil meets 125m Chinese cars - Telegraph

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