Warnings petrol will still reach over €1 a litre despite ease in oil prices

RISING oil prices will hit motorists hard with the price going to over €1 per litre during the summer months, Automobile Association spokesman Conor Faughnan warned yesterday.

Mr Faughnan made his prediction for the second time this week, despite some easing in prices yesterday from their highs of $57.60 per barrel on Thursday.

World prices eased slightly yesterday after hitting a new record earlier in the day of $58 in New York, driven up for a time by unremitting demand.

New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in April, edged down 10 cents to $56.30 in electronic dealing.

By June, Mr Faughnan said the average cost of a litre of petrol will be around 100.4 cent per litre against the current March average of 95.9c, up from 94.8c in January.

Last November, the price of petrol per litre rose to a high of 102.1c but fell back to 98.6c in December.

The days of oil selling for $20 to $23 per barrel are long gone, Bank of Ireland chief economist Dr Dan McLaughlin warned yesterday.

Growing global demand has taken care of that, he said.

In a separate development, Green Party spokesman on energy, Eamon Ryan, accused the Government of being blind to the impending crisis that’s emerging. “With oil demand increasing year on year by over 3% per annum, supply is no longer able to meet demand,” he said.

Prices took off this week in response to a drop in US gasoline reserves and a growing recognition that Saudi Arabia cannot pump any more of the lighter oils needed to make petrol, he said.

But the Government persists on spending four times more on motorways rather than public transport despite the impending oil crisis, he said.

The editor of Petroleum Review, Chris Skrebowski, has warned the oil crisis is only warming up.

At a conference in Dublin recently he said demand is rising at 3% a year as the global economy continues to expand.