More oil!

ASIA: Perhaps you blame oil companies, investors, OPEC, China, or all of these for pushing the price of oil to more than $100 per barrel this year. The price has fallen recently, however, and it could go even lower if oil-producing nations in Asia increase their output as planned.

According to the International Energy Agency in Paris, Asian countries plan to raise crude production by nearly 300,000 barrels a day in 2009. This is close to half of the total growth in global production expected from all non-OPEC countries combined.

The increase comes from China's new offshore oil fields as well as through the use of better technology in the country's main Daqing oil field. New projects to expand production are also under development in Australia, Vietnam, and Malaysia. At the same time, a weakening global economy means the rate of increase in oil consumption is slowing in the region.

Still, most Asian countries use far more oil than they are able to produce. "The reality is that Asia is short of oil, and that's not really going to change," Jeff Brown, from FACTS Global Energy Group in Singapore, told The Wall Street Journal.

• International Energy Agency