Controlled production by OPEC
The cartel of the world's largest oil exporters called the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, accounts for two-thirds of the world's oil reserves but only 40 per cent of world production. OPEC does not want the market to be oversupplied as it would bring down prices. High prices suit the oil producing countries
The dollar dunnit
That's right, as the dollar weakens and other currencies harden, crude oil prices, which are traded in dollar terms, move to compensate changes in dollar value.
So we're thinking of alternative fuels, aren't we?
We are! In India, here's where we are placed...
This century is being marketed as one of natural gas. Gas, found with oil, was previously burned. Governments and companies across the world are now tapping the huge gas resources to fuel their economies. Gas is less than half the price of oil
India's languishing hope for a nuclear deal with the US could boost nuclear power generation
Many companies, including India's Suzlon, are going big on wind energy. Suzlon is developing Asia's largest windpark at Dhule, Maharashtra
Companies like Reliance are betting on solar power. Reliance is setting up a 10 Mw solar power plant in West Bengal. It is also planning to adopt a village in Maharashtra to be lit by power generated from the sun's energy
Tata and Reliance want to convert coal into oil. The technology is still in the initial stages. India has one of the world's largest reserves of coal
Exploit gas reserves from crystalline rocks on sea beds - called gas hydrates. The technology is still being developed. Other than India, tests have been conducted only by the US and Japan. The reserves of natural gas locked up in these rocks are believed to be multiple times larger than the world's total gas reserves
Image: Auto rickshaws pass by a billboard of British mobile giant, Vodafone at a bus-stop
in New Delhi. | Photograph: Manan Vatsyayana/AFP/Getty Images
Also read:
Who is inflating the oil bubble?
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