THE soaring price of oil is altering the wealth and influence of nations and industries.<\/p>\n
The surging price of oil, from just over $US10 a barrel a decade ago to $US100 yesterday, is altering the wealth and influence of nations and industries around the world.<\/p>\n
These power shifts will only widen if prices keep climbing, as many analysts predict. Costly oil already is forcing sweeping changes in the airline and auto sectors. It is intensifying the politics of climate change and adding urgency to the search both for fresh sources of crude and for oil alternatives once deemed fringe.<\/p>\n
The long oil-price boom is posing wrenching challenges for the world’s poorest nations, while enriching and emboldening producers in the Middle East, Russia and Venezuela. Their increasing muscle has a flip side: a decline of US clout in many parts of the world.<\/p>\n
Steep gasoline prices also threaten America’s long love affair with the automobile, while putting strains on many lower-income people outside big cities, who must spend an increasing share of their budgets just on fuel to get to work.<\/p>\n