Oil Back At Price Last Seen A Year Ago (gasoline not so much...)

[Purveyor]

Source: ASSOCIATED PRESS

Oil prices are back to where they were a year ago.

On Friday benchmark crude dropped $2.94, or 3.6 percent, to end the day at $79.20 per barrel in New York. Prices haven't finished that low since Sept. 29, 2010. Since then crude peaked near $114 a barrel in May of this year. It's fallen 31 percent since then as worries grew about the global economy.

--CLIP
Gasoline has not fallen as much as oil. At the pump, a gallon of regular fell a penny to a national average of $3.445, according to AAA, Wright Express and Oil Price Information Service. That's a dime lower than a week ago but still 76 cents higher than the same time last year. A gallon of regular peaked this year at $3.98 on May 5.

In other energy trading, heating oil fell 4.73 cents to finish at $2.7793 per gallon and gasoline futures dropped 2.05 cents to end at $2.5381 per gallon. Natural gas lost 8.1 cents to end the day at $3.666 per 1,000 cubic feet.

MORE...

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/09/30/national/a094605D11.DTL

[NickB79]

1. This is becoming a disturbing pattern

Every time the economy shows the slightest hint of life, oil prices spike. Then, the economy tanks due to high costs of necessities brought on by high oil prices, and oil prices fall again.

I wonder how long we'll put up with this pattern before we realize it's slowly grinding our economy into the ground?

[DJ13]

2. +1

Oil put us into the recession in 08, and they seem determined to keep the economy weak with oil as the weapon.

[NickB79]

5. Who is "they" that are wielding oil as a weapon?

My personal opinion is that we're at Peak Oil, and geological factors are the underlying reason for what we're seeing.

[msongs]

6. US oil companies EXPORT oil found in the US. its all a giant shell game (no pun intended) nt

[Scruffy1]

7. But I love the pun. N/T.

[DJ13]

10. The same financial sector that sold ARM's

The overt manipulation of the commodities markets is easy money for them.

Short term profits are all they are concerned about.

[Andy823]

3. I think

Most people do realize this is happening, but there is nothing we can do about it. Congress has to stop this madness, stop speculators from continuing to do this, but that's not going to happen at least as long as republicans control the house, and then it may even continue if democrats take back the house since there some democrats who have their hands in the wall street "cookie jar" also.

[SoapBox]

9. Ditto.

...spot on.

The Banksters and Robber Barons and Oil Crooks have accelerated their plundering of the masses.

[Javaman]

12. As long as the Dollar is based upon oil as it's standard, it will continue.

Oil is traded based on the dollar. And since china is slowly catching up to us in energy use, I think in about 5 to 7 years the dollar being used as the monetary unit for oil commodity trading will change.

Once that happens, strange things will occur in the US economy. Much stranger and sadly more scary than now.

That is of course Greece is able to hold it together.

Sadly, I don't believe they will. If Greece goes bankrupt, it will be interesting to see if the Euro is able to keep it together. Probably not.

And if that happens, which isn't a giant leap, then some nation needs to step in to stabilize the situation.

I seriously doubt it will be the US. We are dancing as fast as we can to keep our own crap together via a stonewall from the repukes in congress.

However, China would suddenly be put in to an interesting position financially to help out Europe.

Allowing Europe to drop into a hard depression helps no nation globally.

However, China bailing out Europe to some extent, would help the world and would certainly move China to head of class.

[dtexdem]

4. My wife and I joke when we see gas go down a little ...

as when it dropped to $3.079 at some local stations recently: "they're practically giving it away." Remember the shock when it went over $2 per gallon? Hey, I remember not that many years ago being upset when it spiked to $1.80 a gallon.

But then, like other old geezers, I remember the dilemma when it went above $1 a gallon: none of the gas pumps allow for a dollar or more per gallon, yet the stations need to charge more. ;-) The fix was that they rigged the pumps to charge by half-gallons. Of course, it wasn't long before all pumps could charge with a dollars column. Just wait till you see pumps that can charge with the tens-of-dollars column (as pumps in Mexico charge with a tens-of-pesos column).

[safeinOhio]

8. As a young lad

we went down to Texas to visit Grandma. They had a price war at the time and you could buy gas for 7 cents a gallon. Back then a drink of water and air for your tires was free too.

[proud patriot]

11. Price Gouging , blood sucking Corporations GRRRRRRRRRRRR

[dmosh42]

13. If any state built a refinery, they would break the "rigged" price...

in the U.S. We count on the oil companies to build refinery capacity, and there hasn't been a 'new' refinery in over thirty years. They know they can keep the price up by controlling the supply. This has all been covered in hearings some years ago by the House energy committee.

[Spider Jerusalem]

14. "benchmark" crude isn't a benchmark

Oil is still over $100 a barrel for every grade of light crude oil except West Texas Intermediate. Want to know why gas prices are still over three bucks a gallon despite claims of falling oil prices? Because the quoted price of oil on the New York Mercantile Exchange is not the world market price and the US imports over half of its oil, that's why.

For reference:

Louisiana Light Sweet crude oil spot price
Alaska North Slope crude oil spot price
Bonny Light Crude oil spot price

Brent closed at $102 a barrel today. Notice anything with all of those crude oils compared to West Texas Intermediate? They're trading at a $20+/barrel premium.

[defendandprotect]

15. What's the guess as to why? Getting ready for campaign 2012?

Anyone bothering the oil speculators?