Lukong Pius Nyuylime
10 June 2008
At 139 dollars a barrel, crude oil price was very much in the centre of discussion at G8 meeting in Japan.
New hikes in crude oil prices have sent shock waves down the spines of the world's industrialised nations. Meeting in Japan immediately after the record rise was announced; Energy ministers of the world's leading industrialised nations discussed how urgent it is to initiate other alternative sources of power. Crude oil price hit record 139 dollars a barrel over the weekend coercing G8 countries to think of alternative sources, BBC reported.
"Efficiency, shared technology and the promotion of alternative power sources were high on the agenda", BBC said. On Saturday, five key energy-consuming nations, the United States, China, Japan, India and South Korea, all called on oil producers to increase output to try to control the soaring prices.
The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) has said no new decision will be made until its meeting in Vienna in 9 September. The ministers of the five nations meeting on Saturday also agreed on other issues such as developing clean energy technologies, improving efficiency and on better cooperation in strategic oil stocks.
Subsidies
The Japan meeting nursed a new lease of controversy that of subsidies on fuel to attenuate the effects of fuel prices on the poor. Heavy fuel subsidies are used throughout the developing world to try to ease the burden on the poorest in society, participants at the meeting observed.
United States Energy Secretary, Samuel Bodman lambasted the whole idea, stating inter alia that subsidies in China and India had helped drive demand and so increase prices. "We know demand is increasing because a lot of nations are still subsidising oil, which ought to stop," BBC quoted him as having said. India and China all refused the idea of removing subsidies stating that their economies are yet to reach a situation where it is the market that decide the price its citizens should pay for oil. China also made clear it had no time frame for moving towards lower subsidies, saying they needed to consider carefully how removing them might affect the country's social and political stability.
Cameroon's Hydrocarbons Price Stabilization Fund (CSPH) last week announced the disbursement of CFA 16 billion for June as subsidies to reduce the effects fuel price hikes could have on inflation. "The new prices would have been CFA 747 for petrol, CFA 728 for kerosene and CFA 788 for gasoline, but government has decided to maintain them at CFA 594, CFA 375, and CFA 545 respectively", Talba Malla, General Manager of CSPH said in a press statement last week.
The CFA 16 billion subsidy brings to CFA 73 billion the support from the Cameroon State since January.
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