High gas prices hit consumers worldwide

Associated Press
By ANGELA CHARLTON – May 31, 2008

PARIS (AP) — Feeling woozy about the fortune you've just pumped into your gas tank? Drivers around the world share the sensation.

Consumers, gas retailers and governments are wrestling with a new energy order, where rising oil prices play a larger role than ever in the daily lives of increasingly mobile people. But as the cost of crude mounts, the effect on the price at the pump varies startlingly — from Venezuela, where gas is cheaper than water, to Turkey, where a full tank can cost more than a domestic plane ticket.

Taxes and subsidies are the main reasons for the differences, along with lesser factors such as limited oil refining capacity and hard-to-reach geography that push up prices.

"I don't know why it is but... it hurts," says Marie Penucci, a violinist filling up her Volkswagen at an Esso station on the bypass that rings Paris.

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