Mideast Turmoil Keeps Gasoline at 45 Cents in Oil States
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Subsidies in Persian Gulf states that keep gasoline prices as low as 45 cents a gallon are proving difficult to dismantle amid growing regional turmoil.
Ministers from six Arab Gulf nations delayed action to curtail the support when they met Sept. 11 in Kuwait, Ali Al-Omair, Kuwaiti Oil Minister, said that day. State-run Saudi Arabian Oil Co. warned in May that it will have “unacceptably low levels” of oil to sell in the next two decades if domestic power use keeps rising at 8 percent annually. The region currently supplies 24 percent of the world’s crude.