Number of Starbucks stores today: 12,440. Number the company is aiming to have: 40,000. Relevant quote: “Going to the other side of the street can be a barrier,” said Launi Skinner, senior vice president in charge of Starbucks’ store development. Annual GDP of the United Arab Emirates: $98.1 billion. Annual GDP of Kuwait: $52.76 billion. Exxon Mobile revenue, 3Q2006: $99.59 billion. Costs per gallon: Crude oil: $1.32.1 Starbucks coffee: $40.2
At ASPO’s recent conference in Berlin, companies such as BP and Exxon and men such as Fatih Birol, chief economist of the International Energy Agency, began to talk to the proponents of the peak oil theory. Whilst they may not agree with Dr Campbell’s theories, their attendance highlighted ASPO’s emerging importance in the oil debate. In public, Mr Birol denied that supply would not be able to meet rising demand, especially from the buoyant economies in the USA, China and India.