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Energy is surely the most sought after resource today for reasons more than one. Energy is used to drive engines, used for domestic purposes and in general to make life comfortable. In the search for sources of energy OIL and COAL broadly classified as fossil fuels was regarded as the best possible options in the last century. But the scene is changing quite rapidly. Petrol, being an exhaustible resource continues to get depleted from the face of the earth and today we face a global problem, what we call as "hike in petrol prices" which has aggrieved not just major governments in the world or automobile makers or primary consumers of crude oil but most importantly the COMMAN MAN.

Rising petrol prices in all the major consumers like USA, Australia, England and the developing nations like India, China etc. has literally spoilt the sleep of many. The rise in petrol prices is basically a rise in the price of crude oil on NYMEX where the futures contract for "light sweet crude" has gone up from $20 per barrel at the end of 2001 to over $130 per barrel today and is sure to cross the $150 level.

The White House, as usual, has denied taking the responsibility of this. According to Bush's government the developing powerhouses India and China which are pressurizing international markets for more supplies of oil are driving up the prices and hence the decline in oil reserves in recent years has increased all the more.

Nobel Laureate Joseph Stieglitz however argues with this as he feels that this pressure on oil supplies by nations like India and China has not dramatically affected oil prices, though the demand from their side continue to increase. Another school of thought feels that the hike in oil prices comes out as more pronounced only after the Iraq War. So here crops up the debate on the appropriateness of the Iraq War again. Seems like Bush has to suffer hard times for the mistake that he made in Iraq. The economics behind this does indicate the possibility of rise in oil prices with simultaneous peak in world oil supplies. Existing oil field are approaching their peaks while future sources of oil are expensive to access. Moreover the numbers of such oil fields are fast declining. Natural calamities like Hurricane Katrina which supposedly destroyed 109 oil platforms in the Gulf of Texas (according to US official figures) is also no excuse. So everything boils down to the Iraq War. Statistics show that before the Iraq War in 2001, Iraq was pumping 2.5 million barrels of oil per day.

US vice president, before the war, promised the world that Iraq would return to pumping 3 million barrels per day by 2003. This is yet to happen and also by January 2006 it recovered up to 1 million barrels. A loss of approximately 2 million barrels everyday is what the world has experienced. No other oil producing nations among the "OPEC countries" has been able to compensate for the loss and Iraq's oil pipelines continue to diminish because of internal disturbance.

To conclude it would be correct to say that the world is paying a heavy price for a mistake Bush and his decision makers made. Alternative sources should make way for the fossil fuels.