Good Essay On Who Gets What From Imported Oil

Oil is an essential product of our life style. Fuel cost is increasing day by day. Not knowing the real reason of this leads to misconception that the main beneficiaries are oil producing countries especially OPEC Member Countries. This essay will compare the revenues of oil-consuming countries (OECD nations) and OPEC Member Countries in order to find out the reason of oil price raise and who gets profit from produced oil.
OECD countries bought oil at nearly same price but sold totally at different from each other due to inner taxes. Consumers in the UK paid 57.8% and in Italy 55.5% of total fuel cost to their governments as taxes which increased dramatically from 2009 to 2012. Nearly half of a liter of fuel cost was charged as taxes in Germany and France. The lowest tax rate was in the US 14.2% steady for 2011-13. The highest price per barrel in Japan was about $250 in 2011. Canadians bought a barrel of oil at approximately $200 in 2011-13. The estimated average annual OECD tax revenues per barrel in 2009-13 was $116 while OPEC export revenue per barrel was $95 for the same period. During 4 years OECD economies received an average of $1,082 billion pure income per year from oil taxes when OPEC earned an average of $966 billion per year without subtraction of expenses – nearly $115 billion less than OECD governments.
As it is seen OPEC Member Countries producing oil have much less income than OECD countries imposing heavily taxed price on fuel. In conclusion the real burden on consumers is due to taxes, not the original price paid for crude oil or the margins going to the oil companies.