Oil-gas price link means energy prices can fall: 

Germany's BGW

London (Platts)--9Sep2004

The connection between oil and gas prices is not a one-way, uphill street, but
also works when oil levels are lower and are pushing gas values down,
Germany's gas and water industry body BGW said Thursday. 

The industry group
said this was shown by the fact that gas prices had fallen by 3% between
1985-2002 while inflation had risen by about 38%. Without Germany's gas tax,
prices would have fallen by 16%, argued the group. It said about 30% of the
German gas price was the government's responsibility. Last year, German
consumers paid Eur4.3-bil ($5.2-bil) in total in gas taxes to ther
government--which is about 90% more than in 1998. The main reason for the rise
in gas prices was the fact that the government had raised natural gas tax by
almost 60% since the beginning of 2003.

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