More Pain at the Pump for Asian Motorists

The price of oil is once again on the rise, with benchmark Brent crude hitting over US$80 per barrel for a brief period before rumours of Saudi/Russia production increase saw the price fall back to US$75. The prices are the highest in three years and have sparked an almost ‘global’ increase in the prices of the fuel we pump into our cars.

The price of oil, which is always quoted in barrels but actually traded in tonnes (go figure), is of course of grave concern to most economies, especially those where there is little or no oil production, such as India, where for every dollar added to the barrel of oil, there is an increase in the balance of payment deficit of one billion US dollars a year. And thus far this year, the price has shot up by over US$10 per barrel.

Other countries like the Philippines have been hit by a double whammy of higher oil prices and a weaker currency, making the pain at the pump even worse, and there are a lot of people hoping that the recently announced Sino/Filipino exploration of the South China Sea finds a lot of oil quickly.

Read also: The Philippines and China to Jointly Explore Oil Beneath the Spratlys - Is This a Fair Deal?

The news is the same throughout the region, with Singaporeans now having to pay US$1.70 for RON92, US$1.73 for RON95 and US$1.95 for RON98. Malaysians benefit from some of the cheapest fuel in the world and the new Government has frozen the price of RON95 for the time being, at the equivalent of just 50 US cents, although RON97 prices are subject to the vagaries of the market, but was still at a mere 62 US cents this week.

A lot of canny motorists though have discovered a neat way of beating the fuel prices, and that is with the use of octane boosters. These come in many different packages and forms but basically work by making the fuel in your engine more compressible, which due to the magic of science means that the motorist gets much more bang for their buck.

Better still, the better products on the market, such as the X-1R Octane Booster, will actually increase the RON rating of your fuel by three numbers. What this means is that if you add the product to RON92 fuel, you will turn the fuel in your tank into RON95, and if you add it to RON 95, you'd be driving on RON98.

We have surveyed all of the available Octane Boosters on the market and found that the most effective are those items supplied by the X-1R Corporation. Don’t take our word for it - the report is below. If you haven’t yet tried an Octane Booster, now could be a good time, but they are not easy to find. Most Petrol Companies do not sell them, preferring to try to persuade you that their fuel does not need boosting. So, if you want to try one, an easy place to go is www.x1rasia.com. Happy motoring.