Over a barrel

The plunging oil price is like a dangerously addictive painkiller: short-term relief is being provided at a cost of serious long-term harm.

It took more than four years for oil to go from $35 per barrel in 2004 to over $147 in July 2008, and less than six months to fall all the way back again.


For hard-pressed businesses and consumers in the US, Europe and other oil importers, the price collapse has been one ray of light in an increasingly gloomy economic outlook.

But it has also caused a seismic shock to the energy industry worldwide, re-shaping it in ways that will often be unwelcome for oil consumers.

Financial Times

See also: Oil price at which fuel sources become economically viable