Untamed oil prices worry industries

NEW YORK, July 6 (UPI) -- The wild swings in oil prices that pushed prices above $147 per barrel last summer have not settled, a U.S. airline executive said.

"To call this extreme volatility might be an understatement," Laura Wright, chief financial officer at Southwest Airlines, told The New York Times Monday.

"Over the past 15 to 18 months, this has been unprecedented," Wright said. "I don't think it can be rationalized."

The collapse in oil prices last fall lagged behind the collapse in global economies, then caught up with prices plunging to under $33 per barrel. Now, however, as economies remain in a slump, oil prices are rising, climbing 55 percent this year to more than $70 per barrel recently.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries cut production quotas sharply in September in an effort to push prices to an average of $75 per barrel this year, the newspaper said.

As prices rise again, the airline and automobile industries are among those sharply influenced by oil prices. "People do not like that kind of (price) volatility. They want to know what their costs are going to be," said economist Bernard Baumohl at Economic Outlook Group.