Crude oil prices reached a record a US $104 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange last week, breaking the 1980s record high of $39.50 a barrel which, adjusted for inflation, is $103.76. Last week had opened with crude prices touching $103.95 a barrel, which analysts attributed to a falling dollar1. Crude oil prices peaked to another high again after the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), at its meeting on March 5, 2008, decided not to increase crude oil production

• 1. “Oil Prices Pass Record Set in ’80s, but Then Recede”, New York Times, March 3, 2008, at www.nytimes.com/2008/03/03/business/worldbusiness/03cnd-oil.html?_r=1&or...