Why oil price movements are very different to petrol price movements

OPEC: Not so happy when oil prices fallThe alarm bells started ringing for Abdalla Salem El-Badri in about August 2008. Oil prices had started freefalling by then. The OPEC Secretary General hastily convened crisis meetings in September and October, during which the cartel – which controls 40 per cent of global crude oil – agreed to slash production by a total of two million barrels per day. That’s about 318 million litres daily – a box 100 metres by 100 metres at the base, stretching 32 metres into the air.

It was the eve of the global financial crisis. With the US and other notable economies casting about for the Last Rites, demand for petroleum products had fizzled. Economies run on petrol, basically. A barrel of crude hit its stride just before