Does SUV Mileage Drive Gas Prices?

* As a professional commodity futures trader who has made a profit on every energy complex trade done in the last year, I can say that Gregg Easterbrook is exactly correct in his article, “Gorging on SUVs” (Opinion, July 16).

Last year, OPEC achieved a near-tripling of oil prices on a mere 6% cut in production. Why? Because worldwide demand was increasing at the same time. Here in California, I had been warning my friends with their SUVs all last year that higher pump prices were coming. In February 1999, I bought unleaded gas at only 36 cents per gallon. By the time I sold those contracts only a few months later, the price had nearly doubled.

Driving habits and distances haven’t changed for the SUV buyer but going from 30 mpg in a Honda to 15 mpg in the SUV has made all the difference in the increase in demand. This is what drove up the price of oil last year, not so much the OPEC cut in production, which has already been restored.

JOHN ATKINSON

West Los Angeles

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Easterbrook falls back on the old saw, “supply and demand,” as being the cause for the rise in prices. Some months ago we saw gas prices at about $1 a gallon. Now they are closer to $2 a gallon. Where have we seen demand outstripping supply? When was the last time you saw a sign that said “No gas” at a service station? It’s not supply and demand, it’s old-fashioned greed. Greed on the part of the oil producers, the refiners and the oil marketers.

Unfortunately the consumer of gas is a captive of all of them. We have no alternative source of energy to run our cars.

AL COHEN

Sherman Oaks