By Marla Dickerson
Los Angeles Times
Honked off by American pump prices? Cheer up. You could be commuting in Oslo, Norway, where gasoline costs $9.85 a gallon and filling up a Mini Cooper would set you back $130.
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That's the priciest petrol on a list of world gas prices released last week by Associates for International Research Inc., a Massachusetts-based relocation consulting firm that tracks the cost of living in dozens of countries.
In fact, at just more than four bucks a gallon on average, U.S. gas is still cheap compared with much of the world.
"It's small consolation, I know," said Michael Shore, a senior manager at the consulting firm. But "the prices that (Americans) are paying now, Europeans have been paying for a long time."
And it's not just Europe. People all over the world are shelling out more for gas than Americans — who are considerably wealthier. That includes drivers in the East African nation of Eritrea ($9.46 a gallon), Kenya ($5.94), Nicaragua ($5.07), India ($4.94), Chile ($4.85) and El Salvador ($4.70).
In a more extensive study completed by the firm in March, consumers in nearly three-quarters of approximately 150 nations surveyed paid more for fuel than Americans do.There also are motorists who pay considerably less than American drivers. The world's lowest-priced gasoline can be found in oil-rich Venezuela, where, at 12 cents a gallon, you can fill a Hummer for the less than the price of a Big Mac hamburger.
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