I was flipping out over the last few days as I watched prices at the pumps go nuts. A couple of days ago, one station was at $2.19. The next morning, they were up to $2.24. Later that afternoon, they were at $2.29. The next day, they bumped it up to $2.34.
15 cents per gallon in less than 30 hours!
That's pretty freakin' incredible, ain't it?
Now I know why they installed an electronic sign for their prices a few weeks ago; there's no way the clerks could keep up.
Anyway, a little trip down memory lane restored my equilibrium. When oil was trading in the high $20 to low $30s per barrel, gas was around $1.19 or so. Price per barrel has doubled, and price per gallon has doubled along with it.
It sucks, but it isn't profiteering like I thought at first. IN fact, it appears the oil companies have been eating some of the increase instead of passing it on directly to consumers.
All of this is based on memory, but I plan to do a little research next week and check the correlation between crude oil prices and gas prices, and we'll see just how good my memory is.
Posted by Rich at August 14, 2005 1:46 AM | TrackBackSome guy named Craig Smith says that gas will be $5 a gallon when crude hits $80 a barrel. And then $10 a gallon when oil gets to $250 a barrel.
I found this link:
IS $10.00/GALLON GAS AROUND THE CORNER?
Fox business report mentioned that OIL will have to hit 90$ per barrel to equal the 73 OIL crunch after inflation. AFAIK, the Europeans are way past 5$ per gallon and in Asia it is almost 10. So we have it better then most. This Winter will really be bitter. You can drive less to compensate for petrol prices, but heating OIL is going to break people. LNG won't be much better. This winter your heating bill will be about 3 times what it was last winter. Lots of babies next summer. Fat, hairy women will be back in Style. From Britney Spears to Rosie O'donnel.
Wait a minute, freezing to death is supposed to be a relativly good way to go. Better then Rosie? At least if you freeze to death, you don't have to explain anything to your friends.