Fortunes shift as oil prices soar

Millionaires are created in Moscow but French fishermen riot over lost profit as effects ripple around the globe.

Oil makes the world go ’round. Each day, more than 85 million barrels of black gold are pumped from the ground — that’s nearly 70 ounces for each of the 6.6 billion men, women and children on Earth.

Since January, the price of a barrel of oil has almost doubled and is now approaching $100. Blame tensions in the Middle East, speculators on a quest for profit and the hunger for energy of rising powers, including India and China.


The ripples from this price surge are washing up on every shore. It’s creating new wealth in such locales as Moscow, where oil barons are almost at a loss about how to spend their riches. But the effects in some other places are less predictable. Israelis fear a rush of people will chop down trees to heat their homes. Farmers in northern Iraq are abandoning their fields to sell gas. Fishermen in France, stung by the price of diesel, have rioted.

As Californians cope with gasoline near $3.50 a gallon and other Americans brace for a winter of high heating bills, we asked Times correspondents how the skyrocketing prices are affecting their corner of the world. Here’s what they found.

LA Times