TIME: Few of us will miss 2008. Stock markets tanked. Government budgets bled as billions went to 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. For car owners, airlines and any person or company that uses a lot of fuel, plunging gas prices provide a financial break just when it is needed most.
But not 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 economically and politically for some of these countries," says Didier Houssin, director of energy markets and security for the International Energy Agency in Paris.
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. >>> Vivienne Walt | Thursday, January 8, 2009
NZZ Online: Krisen-Knick in Dubais Selbstbewusstsein: Stillstand des Immobilienbooms – verdrängte Rezession
Ein Knick in der Bauentwicklung von Dubai, dem zentralen Investitionsgeschäft der lokalen Herrscher, zeigt eine allgemeine Rezession als Folge der weltweiten Krise an. Damit kommt die ganze Boom-Strategie des Emirats in eine kritische Überprüfung. >>> vk | im Dezember (2008)
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