A car owner smiles as he chats to a petrol pump attendent while refilling his...

A car owner smiles as he chats to a petrol pump attendent while refilling his car at a Dubai petrol station, where prices range from US$0.26 a litre ($0.99 per gallon) for regular to $0.28 a litre ($1.08 per gallon) for unleaded petrol. Oil prices paused for breath on Thursday, steadying from a midweek nosedive of more than $1 per barrel on the prospect for extra supplies and signs of possible dissent in the OPEC producers' cartel. Mexico, together with OPEC heavyweights Saudi Arabi and Venezuela, orchestrated a producers' pact a year ago to curb oil flows to the gutted market, which had driven prices down to single digits. The measures caused big drawdown in crude and refined product supplies and sent prices soaring to peaks not seen since the crisis over the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990.