posted
It's speculation if it goes that high, by which I mean, it'll be an artificial price. Already Americans, and the rest of the world, are curtailing their usage of oil. $4 a gallon seems to be the tipping point for Americans. Now with talk of it almost doubling again? At $8 a gallon, vacations by car will cease to be. Joyrides will cease. It'll be to work and back, and we'll figure the rest out, but with the insane jumps in the price of food that'll come with that, it's not like we'll have any money to spend if we went anywhere anyway.
Our overall consumption at that point will have dropped like a stone, and the rest of the world with us. If it gets that high, there'll be a heck of a lot more at work than simple supply and demand. By conventional logic, the price should have already dropped, but instead it steadily, inexorably, continues to rise, despite the first drop in US oil consumption in 30 years.
If it really goes that high, it'll be a sight to see. But absent a major supply disruption, other than overspeculation and artificially inflating the price, I don't see how it could get there.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Our overall consumption at that point will have dropped like a stone, and the rest of the world with us. If it gets that high, there'll be a heck of a lot more at work than simple supply and demand. By conventional logic, the price should have already dropped, but instead it steadily, inexorably, continues to rise, despite the first drop in US oil consumption in 30 years.
We're not the only market, though. Has worldwide oil consumption dropped?
$4.14 in Dayton last night.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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quote: By conventional logic, the price should have already dropped, but instead it steadily, inexorably, continues to rise, despite the first drop in US oil consumption in 30 years...By conventional logic, the price should have already dropped, but instead it steadily, inexorably, continues to rise, despite the first drop in US oil consumption in 30 years.
My understanding is that oil in the USA is going higher at a faster rate then elsewhere because of the weakness of the dollar. There is no supply shortage like we had in the 70s.
quote: June 28 (Bloomberg) -- OPEC President Chakib Khelil predicted that the price of oil will climb to $170 a barrel before the end of the year, citing the dollar's decline and political conflicts.
quote:OPEC ministers generally say that oil output is sufficient, even as Saudi Arabia, the biggest producer, pledged to pump an extra 200,000 barrels a day next month to calm the market. ``The market is completely supplied,'' Venezuelan Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said yesterday. Libya announced possible production cuts, calling the market oversupplied.
quote: ``The decisions made by the U.S. Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank helped the devaluation of the dollar, which pushed up oil prices,'' Khelil said.
Oil may extend gains if the ECB boosts rates on July 3, further weakening the U.S. currency. The dollar has declined 15 percent against the euro in 12 months.
I blame the Iraq war we are financing on borrowed money instead of high taxes, the mortgage crisis, and the Fed that keeps cutting the interest rates. I see a dollar implosion, but as a Ron Paul fan I saw this coming at the beginning of the election-- thanks to his predictions.
posted
I got gas about an hour ago and payed $4.16 a gallon for it. That's officially the most I've ever paid per gallon. The least I've ever paid was $.68 (or was it .67?) in the late 80s.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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quote:Our overall consumption at that point will have dropped like a stone, and the rest of the world with us. If it gets that high, there'll be a heck of a lot more at work than simple supply and demand. By conventional logic, the price should have already dropped, but instead it steadily, inexorably, continues to rise, despite the first drop in US oil consumption in 30 years.
We're not the only market, though. Has worldwide oil consumption dropped?
$4.14 in Dayton last night.
I don't have numbers to back it up, but my guess would be yes, worldwide consumption has dropped. Price hikes in Europe, the cutting of subsidies in China, and other factors would lead me to believe that worldwide, people aren't using as much.
The price spiked to $4.19 here yesterday, a 20 cent single day jump.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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I saw 3.95 in West Valley City, UT today. Still painful, but not as bad as some, it would seem.
Edit: By the way, reading page one of this thread makes me want to cry... and laugh at the same time. The whole "They are saying oil per barrel could go up from 55 to 105 soon!" when we're at what... $140ish now? Ah, the good 'ol days of 2.19 a gallon in 2005. Posts: 1831 | Registered: Jan 2003
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5 miles to the south of my house it was 4.15 yesterday, but 5 miles to the north and it was an amazing 3.79! No idea why it was such a difference but I got it for 3.79 obviously. Posts: 106 | Registered: Nov 2007
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posted
Woburn, MA: $3.77 for Regular at a local Mobil, down $0.35 from the peak a couple of weeks ago.
Posts: 2926 | Registered: Sep 2005
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Under $4? Still $4.05 for 87 here in Sacramento. I remember thinking $2.15 in high school was outrageous.
Posts: 4229 | Registered: Dec 2002
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It's just funny how we go up through $3 into the $4 range thinking this is terrible, and then we drop back down into $3 and we're all celebrating. I was excited to see it drop from $4.09 to $4.07 finally. Wow! Gas doesn't cost a fortune anymore! Posts: 5957 | Registered: Oct 2001
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posted
It's dipped under $4 here recently. I think it's at $3.85 for the cheap stuff.
I've been reading a lot of different articles on where analysts think the price of oil is going. Some think we're in for a sharp decline, others say this is a hiccup before it launches back up again. The main reason it's down? A massive cutback in driving. But we're still teetering.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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I haven't been in my car in 5 days. I love vacations, I've been getting a lot of exercise. That's one good thing coming from the high gas prices. You have to wonder though, they gas companies could be pricing themselves out of the market, because their price hikes aren't doing anything but pissing people off and stimulating alternative fuel growth. That's hardly a bad thing.
Posts: 4229 | Registered: Dec 2002
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Once shut down, it takes about a week or longer to bring the platforms back up to full production even if there is no damage. So one can expect higher crude oil prices in the near future.
Posts: 8501 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
It actually went down 4cents a gallon here last week, to $4.599. I was carpooling with a neighbor and actually interuppted myself to comment on the decreased price. We are affected when prices go up on the mainland, but very seldom see any relief when prices go down over there. Posts: 2069 | Registered: May 2001
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It's been falling pretty consistently for the last couple weeks here. Yesterday it dropped to $3.69. I guess I'd better go out and fill up sometime tonight.
Edit to add: I just filled up for $3.63. Huzzah!
A couple articles I've read in the last hour or so seem to think that even with Gustav coming through and the platforms detatching for safety, at best it'll take away 20% of the Gulf's production capabilities for a week (unless the storm really does some Katrina like damage) which most people agree with have a minimal effect on both the price of oil and prices at the pumps. But if the storm ends up being more destructive, or nails onshore refining plants, then we're in for trouble.
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$3.53 in Ocala, FL now. I just filled up....not because of the storm, but because I needed it. Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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$3.52 in Lexington, MA. Down another quarter over the last month.
I expect it'll stabilize around this price for the next couple of months (since, as I understand it, pump prices usually lag crude prices by several weeks, and crude prices have been more or less flat for the last couple of weeks).
Posts: 2926 | Registered: Sep 2005
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Prices have jumped 12 cents since last night at most places around here, but it varies widely. Within two miles of me, there are three Mobil stations charging, $3.75, $3.73, and $3.67. It makes no sense to me.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
Anticipation of higher prices to refill the gasoline stations' tanks. During the recent run-up in crude oil prices (and also during the 2005 hurricane season), a LOT of independent stations went bankrupt cuz they failed to anticipate a sufficiently large price increase in wholesale prices, and thus failed to charge enough to refill their own tanks.
If the NationalHurricaneCenter's prediction cone for a hurricane's path overlaps refineries, it takes a couple or three days to shut the plants down without causing damage to the machinery due to an overly rapid cool-down. If the refineries are shut down properly, it takes a couple or three weeks to bring them back up cuz of all the crud that condenses in the pipes during that cool-down. If the refineries are improperly shut down, it takes a couple or three months to repair the damage.
And because there are so few refineries nationwide, the shutdown of a small number of refineries causes a large upward spike in wholesale fuel prices. A case of NIMBY*ism coming back to bite the consumer.
* NotInMyBackYard. Opposition to building new refineries is so strong that rather than a (relatively) large number of (relatively) small refineries being spread across the country, there is instead a small number of (relatively less economical) large refineries. And many of those large refineries were built in hurricane prone regions.
quote:Anticipation of higher prices to refill the gasoline stations' tanks. During the recent run-up in crude oil prices (and also during the 2005 hurricane season), a LOT of independent stations went bankrupt cuz they failed to anticipate a sufficiently large price increase in wholesale prices, and thus failed to charge enough to refill their own tanks.
From what I've read, I don't know how many, but a large number of gas stations purchase their gasoline on short term contracts (like every few weeks), rather than from tank to tank. Maybe that's changed recently with the violent swings in prices, but daily fluctuations in the price of oil should balance out over the average time of their contract. In other words, if oil spiked $50 tomorrow, they aren't necessarily paying that price for it, so charging you more for it 24 hours later seems like a bit of a sham. Charging you more for it when they have to pay for their next contract at a higher rate, well that seems perfectly fair.
Spiking the price ahead of hypothetical storm damage, when you look at how the whole thing works, just strikes me as price gouging. If a refinery has to shut down or enough platforms are hit in the Gulf, then the price will go up on the DOW and thus the price of gas that owners will have to pay will rise as well, and then they can charge more for the subsequent change. But it's not like we all get a discount if the storm ends up totally missing. And if it does hit, the price will skyrocket anyway.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
Charging a price that reflects how much people are willing to pay for gas is far from a sham, and consumers are better off for it. Pricing in this way ensures sufficient supply. Price caps, either government mandated or self-imposed from some misguided idea of 'fairness', lead to shortages.
As for increasing the price ahead of hypothetical storm damage, lets imagine they didn't spike the price. Well, then they'd sell out almost instantaneously, because people go out and buy lots of gasoline. Would they then ship more in, off schedule? Not if they weren't going to increase the price.
What things seem like to you regarding gasoline are wrong-headed. If gas stations behaved like you think they should, people having to deal with upcoming storms would be worse off.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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quote:Charging a price that reflects how much people are willing to pay for gas is far from a sham, and consumers are better off for it. Pricing in this way ensures sufficient supply. Price caps, either government mandated or self-imposed from some misguided idea of 'fairness', lead to shortages.
My problem has less to do with fairness than with their reasons. I shouldn't have even used the word fairness in that post, but even then I didn't mean it in the way you're taking it. I don't have a problem with gasoline costing more, at least, no more of a problem than anyone else. It's annoying for my own personal finances, but the more expensive gas gets, the better chance alternative fuels have a chance to become competitive and then prevelent, so huzzah for free market forces. I think you interpreted my post as a complaint against high gas prices, but it wasn't.
quote:As for increasing the price ahead of hypothetical storm damage, lets imagine they didn't spike the price. Well, then they'd sell out almost instantaneously, because people go out and buy lots of gasoline. Would they then ship more in, off schedule? Not if they weren't going to increase the price.
What things seem like to you regarding gasoline are wrong-headed. If gas stations behaved like you think they should, people having to deal with upcoming storms would be worse off.
My complaint is with the excuses posing as reasons for why gas prices are high. Gas prices are skyrocketing for a lot of goofy and perfectly valid reasons, but there's nothing necessarily unfair about it. If people are still willing to pay for it and there aren't vast supplies of it not being used because of high prices, then clearly it's not out of our reach, it's just taxing, but it theoretically it could have better long term benefits.
quote:Well, then they'd sell out almost instantaneously, because people go out and buy lots of gasoline.
You're going to have to expand on that. People are going to go out and buy lots of gas before a storm regardless. Maybe five or six years ago when a 10 to 20 cent spike in prices on a daily basis was more rare that would make sense, but now, spiking the price 10 to 20 cents ahead of hypothetical storm damage isn't going to phase anyone because they're used to it, and they are still going to fill up ahead of a storm just in case.
If they need to raise the price for a good reason, or just because they can, then do so, but the reason as given by aspectre, looks thin to me.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
I was reacting to statements like this, which certainly sound like an issue with the gas station increasing prices, not with the reasons they give for increasing prices.
quote:charging you more for it 24 hours later seems like a bit of a sham.
It isn't a sham, it is a straightforward price adjustment in reaction to changing demand (and expected future supply). Aspectre touched on the expected future supply part of it: your current price needs to reflect how expensive it will be for you to replace your inventory.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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Locally (Central NJ) prices I've seen range from $3.29 to $3.51 (full serve, like all NJ gas). That's down a good 20 cents from last week, I think.
Posts: 10397 | Registered: Jun 2005
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I just filled up for $3.71 yesterday. I feel like when I have kids, they won't believe that I could once fill up my car for under $2 a gallon.
Posts: 1789 | Registered: Jul 2003
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I feel old saying I remember when gas was less then a dollar a gallon. But that really was less then a decade ago.
Posts: 2223 | Registered: Mar 2008
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The lowest I can remember it being was in the $1.30 range. I don't remember what I first filled my car up for.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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When I started driving in the late '70s, gas was just over $0.50 a gallon. It didn't go above a dollar a gallon until the early '80s. In fact, we weren't sure how it could, since the pumps only went up to 0.999 a gallon. When it finally did go over $1, they recalibrated the pumps to show the price of half a gallon, until they were upgraded.
I remember as a small child, my mother never bought more than $2 worth at a time, and in the time it took to pump that much gas, the attendant(s) cleaned the windshield, checked the oil, and sometimes the tire pressure. I really don't know how much the per gallon price was, but it couldn't have been more than .25 or so.
Posts: 2069 | Registered: May 2001
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posted
Filled up a the local Kroger (grocery store) for $3.16 a gallon. I also do my grocery shopping there so get a $0.10 discount on gas, which made it $3.06 a gallon! Can't wait for it to go under $3.00 a gallon.
Posts: 571 | Registered: Mar 2001
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posted
So what's gas been doing for people post-Ike?
Oil is down to $98 a barrel now, and experts are saying that Ike has actually depressed demand more than it has decreased supply. The government also allowed for rather substantial releases from the SPR to offset that dip.
But of course the big rub always seems, with these hurricanes, to be refineries. There are still several refineries offline today, but the drop off in demand was expected to make up for part of that.
Gas here last week was $3.65 a gallon. Today it's $4.25. I heard on the west coast of the state it hit $5 briefly. I don't understand why it's so dramatically higher in Michigan than it is in other places, since the national average is still in the $3.80 range. We have a few large local refineries, and I could understand if nationally EVERYONE was paying that, but it's not that well spread out. I'm hoping it was just a fear spike and that it'll come back down to earth in the next day or two as people assess the damage to Gulf refineries, which they are already doing and early reports say the damage isn't nearly as bad as they'd feared.
Once the refineries go back online I would imagine the price will plummet, but I wouldn't be surprised to see them keeping the price jacked up just to milk some more money out of us for a couple of days. It looks like the real problem will be getting power back to the refineries, as the damage wasn't that bad. Once that happens and they go back online, gas prices should return to the $3.50 range for a lot of us.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
I have to admit to having been largely oblivious (haven't watched news or checked gas prices in a couple of days) until a friend elsewhere said that she saw my town (Woodstock, GA) on CNN cited as going up $1 in a day. Turns out it's true--prices were in the $3.50/$3.60 range and now they are a dollar higher.
Posts: 3149 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
I filled up Friday morning at $3.60 then I saw prices at $4.50 up to $5.00 a gallon since then. Hopefully they'll be back down before I need to fill up again.
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
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Tonight I went to fill up and the first gas station I tried was totally devoid of gas. This was somewhat serious because I'm in rural Georgia where the stations aren't so thick on the ground, and I had foolishly let my car get very empty. Luckily I found another station in time. $3.99 a gallon. Not as bad as I'd feared.
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
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Gas in Knoxville went up to $5.00 a gallon in the last several days. They had the CEO of Pilot on the news (Pilot is based in Knoxville), and he said that they raised prices to reflect what they had to pay for gas, but I just can't believe that considering it went up to $5.00 almost immediately after Ike.
Posts: 1658 | Registered: Sep 2003
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I remember thinking $2.15 in high school was outrageous.
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