-->Hier eine Kopie des Postings:

die gestern gemeldeten US-amerikanischen Einzelhandelspreise für Benzin zeigen weiter gen Norden. Seit neun Wochen geht es kontinuierlich aufwärts, die letzte Woche mit dem grössten Anstieg in dem Zeitintervall um +5,2% oder 8,0 Cents auf $1,607; auf Jahresbasis sind das dann +50,0 Cents oder +45,2%.

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Noch ein interessanter Artikel der die zunehmende Abhängigkeit der USA vom irakischen Ã-l im Januar aufzeigt:

<font size="4">U.S. thirst for Iraqi oil rises even as war looms </font>
New York |Reuters | 08-02-2003

The U.S. consumption of Iraqi crude increased by 24 per cent in January, even as the Bush administration gears up for a war it says is not about Baghdad's oil.

U.S. companies have in recent weeks quietly turned to Iraqi crude to bail them out as a two-month strike in Venezuela slashed that country's supply to the international market.

"It is a bit ironic. Our dependence increased on Iraqi oil just as we're about to bomb them," said Bill O'Grady of A.G. Edwards in St. Louis, a brokerage house.

The U.S. in January took an average of 1.15 million barrels per day of Iraqi crude - around 13 per cent of total U.S. crude imports - up from 925,000 bpd in December, according to oil industry sources.

Iraq has since December 1996 sold crude oil through the UN"oil-for-food" programme, an exception to 1990-91 Gulf War sanctions that allows Iraq to export oil and use the revenue to buy food and humanitarian goods for its citizens.

While U.S. refiners take most of the Iraqi crude under the program, no U.S. companies purchase Iraqi crude directly from Baghdad. Rather, middleman trading firms usually buy Iraq's crude from Baghdad under UN supervision and then resell it to U.S. refiners.

Iraq has a sustainable export rate of about 2.2 million barrels daily. But exports have lagged since late 2001 as an illegal surcharge outside the UN program that the Iraqi government demanded from its oil customers discouraged international firms from buying Iraqi oil.

Since Baghdad dropped the surcharge last September, U.S. companies have steadily been stepping up purchases of Iraqi crude, despite the Bush administration's growing resolve to disarm Iraq, using military force if necessary.

The increased supply has helped U.S. oil refiners cope with the sudden collapse in supply from Venezuela, whose exports have been running at barely 30 per cent of normal levels.

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