In Saudi Arabia, drivers pay roughly 45 cents a gallon to fill up their cars, and in Venezuela even less. Energy is so inexpensive in Kuwait and Qatar that residents chill their enormous swimming pools in the summer and typically leave their air-conditioners on at full blast while they are away on vacation. Across the Middle East and much of the developing world, government subsidies make energy cheap and encourage consumption. But governments around the world are beginning to take advantage of plummeting oil and natural gas prices by slashing the subsidies. The cuts are just a small fraction of the global total of annual subsidies, but energy experts say they are beginning to add up. Even with oil rebounding in recent days — including a 6 percent rise on Tuesday for the global Brent crude benchmark — the price is down nearly 50 percent from its peak last year of just […]