You read this HERE 5 Years ago! Oil Not Always a ‘Fossil Fuel’ and How did dinosaurs get miles under the earth? Book deflates traditional theories about 'fossil fuels'
Even though I have been reading about plunging oil prices for the past year, it still came as a pleasant surprise this week when I ordered 900 litres of heating oil.
It came to £264. Three years ago, it cost £609 to buy the same quantity.
I have already been saving money on road fuel. Over the past 18 months, the cost of filling my tank has fallen from around £70 to £53.
But for people with oil-fired central heating systems — which is most of us who live in the countryside, beyond the reach of a gas supply — the savings have been even more dramatic.
This is partly because tax makes up a smaller percentage of the retail cost of a litre of heating oil than it does of petrol and diesel.
For me, the cost of heating my home has more than halved, putting an extra £700 a year in my pocket to be spent on other things. Multiply those kind of savings across the economy and consumers, especially those in rural areas, are enjoying a huge bonus from low oil prices.
We have American oil companies and the Saudis to thank for that. For the past 15 months they have been engaged in a fight to the economic death.
Until recently, Saudi Arabia wielded enormous power in the oil markets.
Not only was it responsible for 13 per cent of global oil production, but it headed OPEC, the Organisation of Petroleum-Exporting Countries (Opec), which accounted for 40 per cent of world oil production.
Opec is a cartel that exists for one reason alone: to try to fix world oil prices in order to maximise profits for its members, which are made up mostly of Middle Eastern countries.
If the oil price fell, Opec would meet and agree to cut production in order to push the price back up.