news bulletin – answers

Oil hits new record

questions

1. What has been hurled? a major spanner
2. What does this mean? something has been upset or thrown off balance (to throw a spanner in the works)
3. How much oil is supplied from the closed pipeline? almost half
4. Who is reassuring the public about the oil shortages? the government
5. How long is it since a strike closed a British refinery? more than 70 years
6. What verb is used to describe ‘supply side worries’? to stoke (i.e. to intensify)
7. How much is US light crude? almost $120
8. What is just behind this? Brent crude
9. What other two factors are driving prices higher? militant unrest in Nigeria and Iran’s alleged nuclear programme.
10. Who warned about ‘painful consequences’? the Iranian Foreign Ministry