Oil | featured news

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Consumer prices rose modestly in March amid signs a spike in gasoline costs was ebbing, but inflation still outpaced workers' earnings and threatened to undermine consumer spending.

Several factors are behind the relative complacency now compared with the price surge of 2008, analysts say. Gas prices have soared about 15% in the last six months, hitting $3.94 a gallon on average nationwide, and $4.29 in California.

For the majority of the country, $4 gas isn’t going to doom us or our economy. Here’s why.

President Obama's re-election team is already waging a campaign against Mitt Romney, including an ad linking him to big oil companies.

"... over two decades, more than 45 people have died, BP has faced three criminal convictions ..."

U.S. President Barack Obama said on Friday he has determined there is enough oil in the world market to allow countries to cut imports from Iran, allowing Washington to begin sanctioning countries that continue to buy Iranian oil.

A big shift is happening in Big Oil: An American giant now ranks behind a Chinese upstart. Exxon Mobil is no longer the world's biggest publicly traded producer of oil. For the first time, that distinction belongs to a 13-year-old Chinese company called PetroChina. The Beijing company was created by the Chinese government to secure more oil for that nation's booming economy.

An attempt to roll back oil company tax breaks was blocked in the Senate, despite a Rose Garden push by President Obama, who said the big five oil companies are doing “just fine” as consumers struggle with painfully high gas prices at the pump.

Oil consuming nations may seek reassurance from Saudi Arabia that it will not cut oil production and neutralize the impact on oil prices if consumer countries release emergency reserves, diplomats and industry sources said.