Boom in oil price fuels construction frenzy in Dubai

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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - Snow skiing in the desert? Sure. The world's largest shopping mall and the earth's tallest building? Build them. An under- sea luxury hotel? Why not?

Nothing seems impossible these days in this desert kingdom on the north coast of Arabia.

The biggest oil-price boom of a generation is under way, proving wildly wrong predictions by the U.S. Department of Energy last year that oil prices would decline to $23.57 a barrel.

Prices hit all-time highs of $57.70 per barrel in New York on Friday, and some analysts said prices could rise as high as $105 per barrel. The price closed Friday at $57.27, also an all-time high.

Analysts predicted that regular self-serve gasoline would cost more than $2.25 per gallon within weeks and reach $2.40 by Memorial Day.

Every time motorists fill up at more than $2 a gallon in the United States, the swishing sound you hear in this desert kingdom is billions of fresh petrodollars pouring in. Oil profits are being spent with such relish that Dubai's economy grew last year at a rate of 16.7 percent, compared with U.S. growth of 4.4 percent and China's 9 percent.

It's not just Dubai that is being transformed by the world's -- especially China and India's -- thirst for oil.

Petrodollars are helping repair Russia's tattered economy and giving President Vladimir Putin an excuse to avoid needed reforms, plus a way to revive Moscow's influence on the global stage.

In Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez is using the oil bonanza to beef up his military, thumb his nose at Washington and polish his populist credentials with giveaways to a restive population.

But it's Dubai's freewheeling economic vision -- and lack of any democratic opposition -- that has proved a magnet for investments by the newly wealthy oil rich.