'Demand in India, China to be responsible for high oil prices'

Washington, Mar 8: US President Barack Obama has warned that growing energy demands in populous and emerging economies like India, China and Brazil would be responsible for the increase in global oil prices in the long term.

"Over the long term, the biggest reason oil prices will go up is there's just growing demand in countries like China and India and Brazil. There are a lot of people there," Obama said in his remarks on energy at the Daimler Truck Manufacturing Plant in North Carolina.

"In 2010 alone, China added nearly 10 million cars on its roads. Think about that 10 million new cars. People in China, folks in India, folks in Brazil -- they're going to want cars, too, as their standard of living goes up, and that means more demand for oil, and that's going to kick up the price of oil worldwide. Those numbers are only going to get bigger over time," Obama said.

"So what does that mean for us? It means we can't just keep on relying on the old ways of doing business. We can't just rely on fossil fuels from the last century. We've got to continually develop new sources of energy," he said.

"That's why we've made investments that have nearly doubled the use of clean, renewable energies in this country. And thousands of Americans have jobs because of it. It also means we've got to develop the resources that we have that are untapped, like natural gas. We're developing a near hundred- year supply of natural gas -– and that's something that we expect could support more than 600,000 jobs by the end of the decade," Obama said.

"And that’s why we've worked with the private sector to develop a high-tech car battery that costs half as much as other batteries and can go up to 300 miles on a single charge. Think about that. That will save you some money at the pump. That is why we are helping companies like this one right here and plants like this one right here to make more cars and trucks that use less oil," he said.

PTI