ZPEnergy.com - 12 cents a gallon gas

From KeelyNet news -05/11/06 - Energy crisis? Venezuela gas cheaper than water at 12 CENTS A GALLON!
Taxi driver Jaime Tinoco works the streets of Caracas in a 1976 Chevy Nova that guzzles 19 gallons (72 liters) of gas a day. But he doesn't worry about fuel efficiency -- filling his tank costs just $2.30. While U.S. consumers struggle with soaring energy prices, Venezuela's gas is now the world's cheapest at 12 cents a gallon and Washington's regional foe, President Hugo Chavez, vows to maintain subsidies that keep fuel dirt-cheap.

Chavez, a self-proclaimed socialist and critic of President Bush, has even begun subsidizing fuel for poor U.S. neighborhoods as U.S. consumers brace for average summer gas prices of $2.71 a gallon -- 34 cents higher than last summer. In Venezuela, the world's No. 5 oil exporter, drivers fill their tanks for less than the price of a cheap breakfast, and love to point out that gasoline costs less than mineral water. The nation's gasoline is now the world's cheapest, according to an International Monetary Fund report released in April that shows Venezuelan gas prices as about a third of those in oil-producing giant Saudi Arabia. Shiny SUVs and rusty 1970s-era sedans share the streets of Venezuelan cities as drivers shrug off fuel costs. Past efforts to raise gas prices have not gone well. Authorities in 1989 raised fuel prices at the height of a recession, leading to three days of rioting during which at least 300 people were killed. Human rights groups say troops may have killed several thousand people.