Gas costs in other countries...

[brojcol]

Bogged down
Most expensive places to buy gas 
Rank Country Price/gal
1. Sierra Leone $18.42
2. Aruba $12.03
3. Bosnia-Herzegovina $10.86
4. Eritrea $9.58
5. Norway $8.73
6. United Kingdom $8.38
7. Netherlands $8.37
8. Monaco $8.31
9. Iceland $8.28
10. Belgium $8.22
111. United States $3.45


Cruisin' 
Where gasoline is cheapest
Rank Country Price/gal
1. Venezuela 12 cents
2. Iran 40 cents
3. Saudi Arabia 45 cents
4. Libya 50 cents
5. Swaziland 54 cents
6. Qatar 73 cents
7. Bahrain 81 cents
8. Egypt 89 cents
9. Kuwait 90 cents
10. Seychelles 98 cents
45. United States $3.45

[Lee Bradley]

..and Norway is a major exporter of oil.

[kyle4501]

It's all about the taxes & pay-offs & politics & BS

[Jeremy]

What would be really interesting would be an across-the-board comparison of income versus the common household expenses for those countries. The UK for example has expensive fuel but a fantastic free health service. Norway apparently have almost no military to pay for, but the most phenomenal education social security system you can believe (to the extent where it gets silly - for instance the Norweigan Hell's Angels chapters receive state funding). Their government is unbeliveably wealthy, with their treasury receiving a net income from oil revenues of over $1bn every day, and the Norweigan state investment fund holds huge stakes in public companies around the world, including effectively owning several big name American and British banks. I heard a radio program about it recently.

The balance is different in every country, but in today's globalised society I would imagine that the playing field is actually getting more level as people's mobility increases and it becomes easier to choose which country you want to live, earn and pay taxes.

Jeremy

[jjrbus]

And who do you think you are Sir to insinuate that the US Hells Angels do not recieve funding!!!!!! We the American taxpayers demand an apology.

[Len Silva]

Well, there is a very subtle difference between receiving funding and just taking it 

[hiwaycallin]

How can the U.S be both the 111th most expensive and also the 45th cheapest?

[tekebird]

easy if you count from the top and the bottom of the same list

[kingfa39]

This is not some other country it is still the U.S.A so what has all the rest of the world got to do with us??? we have enough oil here in the us so we dont need foreign oil but our govenment saw fit to shut down us oil well yrs ago so there cronies could get rich buying foreign oil, like the exxon holding company buys it cheap then sells it back to themselves at a high price, in otherwords lies and deseption

[DrivingMissLazy]

And how long is it going to take to get that humongous discovery in North Dakota on line. Supposedly the largest discovery in the country from the beginning of oil exploration.

Richard

[belfert]

And how long is it going to take to get that humongous discovery in North Dakota on line. Supposedly the largest discovery in the country from the beginning of oil exploration.

I believe the North Dakota oil find is 3.3 billion barrels.  That is only a 157 day supply for the United States!  Not enough to hardly make a dent.  I suspect it will take a number of years to bring this oil production fully online unless the infrastructure is already in place.

I firmly believe that fuel prices need to stay at today's levels to finally encourage citizens of the USA to conserve.  Fuel prices certainly aren't high enough to hurt a lot of people since I see folks in large SUVs passing me at 80 MPH.  I understand not everyone wants an econobox, but at least slow the heck down and save some fuel.  There are lots of smaller SUVs and sedans that at least get 25 MPG or better instead of 14 to 15 MPG.  I personally drive a vehicle that got 38 to 40 MPG before ULSD (and the 35W bridge collapse) and gets 32 to 35 MPG now.  I don't feel I sacrifice much with a small car.

[Jeremy]

Now is probably a good time to get into doing LPG conversions in the States - it is bound to be a growth industry if your fuel prices do keep going up. It is big business here, with LPG being available at many filling stations and the major manufacturers selling dual-fuel cars from the factory, so you don't even need to do the conversion.

Obviously European cars have been generally much lighter and more fuel efficient than yours for decades, because our fuel is so much more expensive - but there are still big vehicles around, driven by people like me. Because of the running costs, big cars here depreciate like falling stones, so my own philosophy is that because they are so much better value to buy in the first place that I can justify spending more on fuel given that my annual milage actually isn't that great. Unfortunately, however, it may be that my theory is about to fall apart because of the tax situation with big-engineed vehicles here - having been a flat rate for all vehicles for many years, the amount of annual tax you pay here for a car is now dependent upon it's C02 emissions - if you have an electric car the annual tax is zero, but if you buy a Range Rover you pay £2000 ($4000) a year. This currently only applies to new cars, but there is talk that it is going to be made retrospective for cars up to 7 years old, which would mean I go from paying £180 ($360) a year for each of my cars to £2000 each, which would be more than most of them are worth. Then the bottom is really going to drop out of the big-car market!

Jeremy