# Has gas prices skyrocketed in countries other than the US in recent months? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 30, 2004, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-gas-prices-skyrocketed-in-countries-other-than-the-us-in-recent-months/247785 "2004-05-30T14:08:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2004, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-gas-prices-skyrocketed-in-countries-other-than-the-us-in-recent-months/247785/1 "2004-05-30T14:08:08Z")
It’s gone up quite a bit in the US in the past couple months, how about other countries? I assume it’s gone up because OPEC countries are charging more for the oil, and I suppose there are other countries that get as much oil from OPEC as we do. Are these assumptions correct? ---
**Author:** ![Critical\_Mass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f1d935/32.png) [@Critical\_Mass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Critical_Mass)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2004, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-gas-prices-skyrocketed-in-countries-other-than-the-us-in-recent-months/247785/2 "2004-05-30T14:36:24Z")
On the Canadian prairie, prices have gone from ~$1.85 gallon to about $2.55 ($US / USgallon) since the beginning of the year. Particularly painful as I bought a new pick-up in December. Very nice truck. Very bad mileage. I rationalized that I could afford the gas at the time. 6 months later, though, and the price of gas has increased almost 40% I work in the aviation industry where jet fuel prices have risen about 30% in the same time frame. As fuel is our largest annual expense, we’re suffering right now. The market takes a while to adjust to the new price. ---
**Author:** ![hawthorne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@hawthorne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hawthorne)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2004, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-gas-prices-skyrocketed-in-countries-other-than-the-us-in-recent-months/247785/3 "2004-05-30T15:26:51Z")
Last servo I saw today: A$ 1.04. Call it $2.81/gallon. Yes, it’s gone up here in the last few months. > [@](#): > > I assume it’s gone up because OPEC countries are charging more for the oil, and I suppose there are other countries that get as much oil from OPEC as we do. Are these assumptions correct? Eh, close, but not quite. OPEC doesn’t really set the price. It has market power, but there are other producers (and there are other non-producer players). OPEC decides its output and its members decide the extent to which they are going to obey their quotas. Non-OPEC countries and firms decide _their_ output. Users and hoarders decide what (if anything) they’re going to do. The price is a combination of what all these people do. But, yeah, OPEC has a good idea of this and tries to set its target appropriately. Another factor is whether taxes are _ad valorem_ rather than specific (a pretty big issue here) . The second assumption isn’t quite right either. The world price of oil is what’s important. Even if a country doesn’t get much oil from OPEC sources, it’s still likely to feel the effects of what OPEC does, since whatever source it’s getting its oil from can always sell elsewhere. ---
**Author:** ![Aagramn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Aagramn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aagramn)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2004, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-gas-prices-skyrocketed-in-countries-other-than-the-us-in-recent-months/247785/4 "2004-05-30T15:32:17Z")
Yes, it’s gone up to about 80p a litre here in the UK. Thats about £3.60 a gallon, or $6.60 a gallon at current exchange rates. ---
**Author:** ![Mike\_H](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecd19e/32.png) [@Mike\_H](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mike_H)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2004, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-gas-prices-skyrocketed-in-countries-other-than-the-us-in-recent-months/247785/5 "2004-05-30T16:11:06Z")
\*\* Aagramn \*\*, I’ts not quite that much… you’re probably converting liters to to UK gallons, (1 gal to approx. 4.5 liters).A U.S gallon (3.78 liters) works out to about $5.50/gallon (at $1.83 = £1.00). Maybe the US should take up the metric system, it makes the gas prices seem cheaper 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2004, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-gas-prices-skyrocketed-in-countries-other-than-the-us-in-recent-months/247785/6 "2004-05-30T16:55:38Z")
Prices have gone up a great deal here in Panama. It even let to a short-lived and rather uneffective strike by the transportation sector (buses and taxis) earlier this week. It’s a significant political issue here right now. ---
**Author:** ![Aagramn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Aagramn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aagramn)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2004, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-gas-prices-skyrocketed-in-countries-other-than-the-us-in-recent-months/247785/7 "2004-05-30T17:20:07Z")
Ah, thanks Mike H, I forgot about US gallons. UK prices haven’t gone up that much recentely, probably less than 5%, but they were a lot higher than the US prices to start with. We pay a lot more tax on fuel. ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2004, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-gas-prices-skyrocketed-in-countries-other-than-the-us-in-recent-months/247785/8 "2004-05-30T23:42:32Z")
Users on my Web site from Australia and New Zealand have also reported similar price rises in gasoline. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2004, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-gas-prices-skyrocketed-in-countries-other-than-the-us-in-recent-months/247785/9 "2004-05-30T23:50:13Z")
> [@Aagramn](#): > > UK prices haven’t gone up that much recentely, probably less than 5%, but they were a lot higher than the US prices to start with. We pay a lot more tax on fuel. They’ve probably gone up a comparable _absolute_ amount - but this translates to a far smaller _proportional_ increase, because of the higher taxes that you point out. So yes, they’re high enough for people to be noticing it and talking about it, but nobody is shocked by ‘skyrocketing’ prices. ---
**Author:** ![kellner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c2a13f/32.png) [@kellner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kellner)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2004, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-gas-prices-skyrocketed-in-countries-other-than-the-us-in-recent-months/247785/10 "2004-05-31T00:01:39Z")
This is a chart for Germany, unfortuantely only in German but pretty self-explanatory: [http://www.clever-tanken.de/statistik4.asp?type=4](http://www.clever-tanken.de/statistik4.asp?type=4) Prices are given in Euro per liter, multiply with 4.62 for US$/US Gallon. ---
**Author:** ![Mithgard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Mithgard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mithgard)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2004, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-gas-prices-skyrocketed-in-countries-other-than-the-us-in-recent-months/247785/11 "2004-05-31T00:15:41Z")
Here in Canada, more specifically within about 100km of the Greater Toronto area, the prices are fluctuating anywhere between 90cents/litre to as high as 97cents/litre…\*sigh…i remember the days when 49cents/litre was considered to be high ☹