FT No panic on oil

What is new is a growing feeling that these tighter conditions in the oil market may last. Alan Greenspan, chairman of the US Federal Reserve, pointed this week to the firming of oil and natural gas futures six years down the road. But higher energy prices may be no bad thing, though they pose a severe problem for the world's poorest economies that are often least able to switch away from fossil fuels. For the track record is that price has been the most powerful instrument for energy efficiency, and that as the impact of the 1970s oil price shocks has waned, so has energy saving.