Fuel costs are roughly one third of expenses and WTI has climbed back up to the mid-nineties per barrel so the spiral of fare increases and capacity reductions will continue making travel even less tolerable than it already is.

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If built as planned, Shell's two GTL plants (one scheduled to open in 2008-09 and the second in 2010-11) will have a combined daily capacity of 140, 000 barrels, as compared with Sasol's two 34, 000-barrel-a-day plants in Nigeria and in Qatar.

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