Gasoline at Pump a Penny Short of Historic High, Averaging $1.74 a Gallon

[NNN0LHI]

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGALB235LRD.html

WASHINGTON (AP) - The average retail price of gasoline climbed 2 cents last week to $1.74 per gallon, the Energy Department said Monday, about a penny shy of the highest price since the department began collecting data.

Together, the high prices for crude oil, strong demand and low commercial inventories made gasoline expensive this winter. Analysts expect those same trends to be in place this summer, the peak driving season.

Also, this is the time of year when supplies tend to tighten as refineries shut down temporarily for maintenance before ramping up production of special blends of cleaner-burning gasoline for summer.

For the week that ended Feb. 27, nationwide gasoline inventories stood at 202 million barrels, 1.8 million barrels less than last year and 9.9 million barrels below the 5-year average, according to the Energy Information Administration, the Energy Department's statistical arm.

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[PartyPooper]

1. For those who can, I recommend buying gas at Costco.

Usually, they're 15¢-20¢ per gallon cheaper than the regular filling stations in the area.

Besides, Costco is a contributor to the Democratic Party.

:-)

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. Can someone explain to me (outside the USA)

why you're all whinging about the price of gas, when it was more expensive last September? And it's a whole 2.6 cents more expensive than last year?

[yardwork]

3. Hello friend!

Your use of "whinging" tells me that you must hail from Britain. Fuel is a lot more expensive in Europe and most other parts of the world, I know. Americans have gotten used to paying relatively little for gas and oil.

It's one reason that nobody talks about conservation anymore.

It's a crying shame that we've paid so little attention to developing alternative forms of energy.

The reason is profit. Profit for those companies that manufacture and sell traditional gas and oil. Companies owned by Bush and Co. for more than a century.

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. Hi, thanks

the point I was getting at is that gas isn't that expensive by past American standards, either - and the graph posted below really shows that. The comments I'd seen on DU over the past couple of weeks made it seem as though the prices were unprecedented.

[DrWeird]

4. Because we went through all that trouble...

of invading another country, killing thousands of civilians, hundreds of our own troops, and wasting a hundred billion dollars, and our gas prices didn't even go down.

[NNN0LHI]

5. Very succinct n/t

[JoeKSimmons]

6. I hope I'm not the only one that wants to see gas go sky high

It will help stop unnecessary driving, curb off-roaders from destroying the environment and generally reduce pollution. I'm thinking 5 dollars a gallon would help restrict the waste.

Where I live I see thousands of snowmobilers waste fuel in their efforts to destroy the virgin snowpack in the farmers fields and get their thrills polluting pristine Vermont towns. Enough is enough!

Between them and the hundreds of cars carrying downhill skiers to the slopes with their wasteful and destructive ski-lifts it's very depressing. Why these addicts can't sit at home and read a good book or send their money to the third world nations that REALLY NEED it I'll never understand!

[w4rma]

8. What? (n/t)

[JoeKSimmons]

18. Sorry...hopefully I fixed the spelling mistakes this time...

It will help stop unnecessary driving, curb off-roaders from destroying the environment and generally reduce pollution. I'm thinking 5 dollars a gallon would help restrict the waste.

Where I live I see thousands of snowmobilers waste fuel in their efforts to destroy the virgin snowpack in the farmers fields and get their thrills polluting pristine Vermont towns. Enough is enough!

Between them and the hundreds of cars carrying downhill skiers to the slopes with their wasteful and destructive ski-lifts it's very depressing. Why these addicts can't sit at home and read a good book or send their money to the third world nations that REALLY NEED it I'll never understand!

[maggrwaggr]

9. sure, but right now it's pure profit for the oil companies

if you like giving your hard-earned dollars to the oil companies who are ripping you off, you go right ahead.

And now we're deliberately stirring up trouble in Venezuela to keep those prices HIGH!

Oil prices will start going higher and higher as we begin to run out of it. Then everything else will follow. Expect exponential inflation.

I'm in no big hurry for that, personally. I have enough problems making ends meet as it is.

[myomy]

15. Did you see Exxon/Mobil's Net Profit for 2003, Wasn't it $26 BILLION ?

.

[maggrwaggr]

25. yes, they all had record earnings. n/t

[JoeKSimmons]

19. Europe is paying >4 dollars per gallon

And so should we. It really does help to curb abuse of petrol.

[NickB79]

17. And with high gas prices, our economy crumbles

With high gas prices come high costs for those workers commuting, and the job market takes a downswing. Not everyone is on a bus route or light rail line to replace cars. Further, high oil prices in general make many goods more expensive to buy. Take a look around at all the products made of plastic today and imagine if all of them cost twice as much to make. Jet fuel for airliners go up, increasing ticket prices and reducing airline travel. When winter comes, heating fuel prices go up as well.

The people wasting so much gas today are already generally wealthy enough to afford $3, $4, or even $5/gal gasoline for their toys. In the meantime, those of us who have to commute to work, go without raises, and have to pinch pennies to scrimp by are all screwed. The poor and middle-class are the ones who will suffer, while the rich still drive their SUV's to the ski lodges.

[JoeKSimmons]

20. It has not destroyed the EU economy

The EU is trashing our dollar and their fuel prices arr greater than 4 dollars a gallon. Don't buy into the high fuel price equals bad economy line. We need to tax the fuel until usage goes down. We can use the tax to fund much needed schools, welfare and other much needed prorams.

[NickB79]

37. European transportation systems are also much better than ours

Their public transit systems are MUCH more developed than ours, where here in the US in many areas you can't get by without a car to commute to work or go shopping. Their economy has had decades to prepare and deal with higher prices of gasoline, whereas here it is starting to hit us over the course of only a few years. To make matters worse, we've actually increased our dependance on oil and gas even as it becomes more scarce. We throw away massive amounts of plastic every year that could be recycled, and keep buying goods packaged in excessively-wrapped plastic casings. To compare our society to Europe's fails to take into account that the US is a very wasteful and resource-hungry society in general. If the US had spent the past 35 yrs since the oil embargo of the 70's attempting to free itself of dependance on foreign oil, we might be in the same league as the European community. But the sad fact of the matter is that we haven't. We've embraced gas-guzzling SUV's and plastic everything without working to develop alternative sources of power and material.

[lazarus]

35. unnecessary driving?

like my wife's necessary 40 mile commute to work?

[northzax]

7. can you say "not adjusted for inflation" boys and girls

adjusted for inflation, gas prices from 1981 ranged as high as 2.80/gallon in modern day dollars. And in the hey day of the 1950's? the glory day of the automobile? about 2.50/gallon. Gas is cheap. both historically and relatively.

[AndyTiedye]

11. and add about .50/gallon more if you are in California

we have the highest gas prices in the nation.

[treepig]

12. here you go,

edited to paste in correct chart, and crude oil prices, too:

[shanti]

yup

i'm in cali and just filled up yesterday. it was 2.09 a gallon for regular unleaded

[shanti]

14. delete dupe

n/t

[northzax]

16. see, this is what's great about America

I post an idea, and some fellow duer posts the evidence. rock on.

[snippy]

10. I think Turd Blossom Rove will order Bush to release oil from the SPR.

[JoeKSimmons]

21. Or worse yet open ANWR for oil drilling

Is America ready to allow drilling in the last wild place left in North America? Every other square inch of America is overrun by SUVs and soccer moms. Do we really want the last remaining wild land opened to oil spills, trucks, snowmobiles and other destructive vehicles?

[NNN0LHI]

23. If drilling started there today it would be years before a drop of that...

...crude hit our market.

Don

[maggrwaggr]

26. Yeah, AND they'd just sell it to Japan

they don't give a shit about our oil dependency. It's pure economics with these folks.

[treepig]

22. the driving force behind the recent price increases is refinery capacity

not a shortage of crude oil per se.

the bigger issue is that no one wants to build new refineries - ostensibly because of onerous environmental regulations but more probably (in reality) because the corporations know all about "peak oil" and they don't see any point in building new refineries they won't be able to supply with crude oil over the long term

[snippy]

28. The price of oil affects the price of gasoline.

You are correct that refinery capacity also is a factor, but the price of oil is the primary factor in the price of gasoline nationwide.

The relationship between the price of oil and the price of gasoline can be seen in these charts.





Refinery capacity in this country has changed very little in the last 20 years even though the number of refineries has decreased. The main reason no company wants to build additional refineries is that the return on invested capital is very low. This could change since there is reduced competition as a consequence of the consolidation which has occurred in both the independent refinery and integrated oil industries in the last few years.

[treepig]

29. yeah, ok

i was basing my post on this chart from AAA which doesn't show the dramatic increase in crude oil prices that yours does:



from http://198.6.95.31/

more information here (agrees with your data, don't know what's up with AAA):

http://www.oilnergy.com/1opost.htm#6mo

[snippy]

31. I don't understand that AAA chart.

There is no scale for the price of oil so I can't tell what kind of a percentage change occurred. I'm not sure what point AAA is trying to make with that chart.

[treepig]

34. the scale for the price of oil is the cost of one gallon of crude oil

but since there is not necessarily a one to one correspondence between a gallon of crude oil and the subsequent production of a gallon of gasoline, it is a fairly silly comparison.

[osaMABUSh]

24. I couldn't give a rat's ass about how high gas goes

I drive a Honda Civic and love to see those mammoth SUVs and Hummers fill up every couple a days at $50 a pop. I fill up once a week for $15. BTW, I haven't heard much pub about Hummers lately.

Actually, I think the higher gas goes the better chances America will wake up to our dependency on fossil fuels and our war for oil. I look at it as short term pain for long term gain if we can get attitudes about oil changed.

I say tax the shit out of it and make it $3.00 a gallon.

[mitchtv]

27. I must admit to a certain amount of smugness

here in CALIF. these idiots recalled Gov Davis so they didn't have to pay their car taxes- they are ALL driving big new SUVs that they can't afford(can barely drive). now the money thy saved is going down the drain instead of fixing the highways thet they collectivly are ruining. . Not to mention the 57b in bonds we borrowed.

[4dsc]

30. CLosing oil refineries

I heard on the Ed Schultz show that oil companies have closed 6 refineries in the past year.

I think we have a problem here with these oil companies..

[Cooley Hurd]

32. This sucks on so many levels...

For me, personally, I'm bumming because I'm a boating enthusiast & my boat has 150 gallon gas tanks (30 ft Sea Ray). If prices at the marina hit $3/gallon, I won't be able to go too far in it (w/ the exception of the Repig convention this summer, I'll still sail from Albany to NYC for that).

[gulfcoastliberal]

33. TruthOut Today

Has an editorial from the LA Times about Peak Oil. It's called "Running Out of Oil - And Time". Check it out:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/030904G.shtml

[llmart]

36. After reading all these posts...

I have to say that I agree most with what JoeKSimmons has to say. Let's be honest here. The majority of people in this country are spoiled and could give a rat's ass about anybody or anything but themselves. They waste gasoline because it is cheap and then get in an uproar when the price goes up to $2.00 a gallon. I for one have a four cylinder small car and it gets me where I want to go. I don't make unnecesssary trips either. People in this country have a complete inability to stay home and just enjoy time for family, hobbies, reading, listening to music. When they get free time they have to hop in their car and go someplace, namely shopping, because that's all they derive pleasure from anymore. I hope it goes up to $3.00 a gallon to hurt these people driving these monstrous vehicles. And don't tell me how our economy will collapse because of it. Maybe people won't waste their money on cheap gewgaws from China that junk up their houses and end up in a landfill somewhere a year later. Maybe they'll have to think more about their conspicuous consumption of crap!