Experts: Further surge in gas prices expected, gas to top $3 per gallon

[entanglement]

"WASHINGTON - With the summer driving season still more than a month away, gasoline prices have already started their seasonal climb — jumping 15 percent in the past six weeks alone. And that’s just the price you’re paying at the pump. With wholesale prices rising even faster, it’s a safe bet that the surge in pump prices isn’t over, analysts say"

More here:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12265103/

So what will Exxon's profit be this year? 50 billion? 75 billion? (it was roughly $36 billion last year)

[jsamuel]

1. will DU'ers please stop using that lame "peak oil" excuse

let's face it, the oil companies are cutting production on purpose and raising prices

peak oil peak oil peak oil
terra terra terra

[tatertop]

3. It's price gouging pure and simple

[entanglement]

5. We need a windfall profits tax or something

n/t

[Coastie for Truth]

11. What we really need is a Democratic President

who will appoint a "Kick Butt and Take Names - No Bull" Attorney General (like NY's Eliot Spitzer, or like Pennsylvania's Herb Denenberg from the 1970's or like Jennifer Granhol was when she was a prosecutor in Michigan).

[cliss]

7. It's a basic function of supply and demand.

Economics 101. You have demand: the U.S. burns through about 20 million barrels of oil per day. That's barrels, not gallons.

Supply: we are running out of the good stuff; light sweet crude. There's lots of oil left, but it's the bad stuff: sour, heavy sulfur-laden tar which is expensive to refine.

When supply goes down, the price goes up.

I stand by my claim.

[lastliberalintexas]

8. Peak oil would be correct for long term pricing issues

But you're right that most of these shorter term spikes are simply manipulated fluctuations in the market designed to increase profits.

[Coastie for Truth]

9. Wrong-o

In order to disregard "Peak Oil" one has to start by believing the Rick Wagoner (GM CEO) and Bob Lutz (GM President) line that we don't have to worry about peak oil -- we can just go on buying GMC Suburbans and GM Hummers -- and that these silly cutesie Prius hybrids are just a California fad for San Francisco hippies and tree huggers. Wrong-0.

This is my reading list - after reading and posting on the -- and way too many years in the alternative, renewable, and green energy business, and holed up in engineering school for way too many years.

1.

2.

3. Jim Kunstler's "The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century" - a Malthusian book that is always cited by Progressives, Liberals.

4. Amory Lovins' "Winning the Oil Endgame" - always cited by Green techies and geeks like me.

5. Ken Deffeys' two books - "Beyond Oil : The View from Hubbert's Peak" and "Hubbert's Peak : The Impending World Oil Shortage" - good books.

6. Matthew Simmons' "Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy"

7. Michael Klare's two books - "Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Dependency on Imported Petroleum" and "Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict" - more politics and economics (and some "what really drives the colonialist imperialist goals of PNAC")

8. Anthony Evans' "An Introduction to Economic Geology and Its Environmental Impact" - just a good general read on geology of coal, petroleum, water.

9. John Newman's classic "Electrochemical Systems" (The "Bible" of batteries and fuel cells) - I taught from this one
:hi:

;) - OK If I had to suffer through 15 credits of this stuff I am going to list them--
10. "Unit Operations of Chemical Engineering" by Warren McCabe, Julian Smith, and Peter Harriott

11. "Transport Phenomena" by R. Byron Bird, Warren E. Stewart, and Edwin N. Lightfoot ;)

I agree that "Big Oil" - and its lobby - controls the White House and the GOP.

I agree that "Big Oil" - and its lobby have completely lied to us on global warming

I agree that the White House is shot through with "Big Oil" people.

I agree that "Big Oil" is greedy as heck, and totally dishonest.

I agree that the management of America's Big Three (Wagoner, Lutz, Ford, Zetsche) are grossly incompetent and have been out maneuvered by the Japanese.

I agree that the short term, day to day, (and to some extent seasonal) price movements are "managed" by the oil companies ("price fixing" and "contracts, combinations, and conspiracies in restraint of trade" - crimes)

But that doesn't change the fact that "Peak Oil" is for real - it is long term - and like Kunstler (above) and Lovins (above) both predict - it is going to change the very structure of our society in the long run.

Yes - I do have a long standing chip on my shoulder/grudge/obsession re: "Big Oil"

[entanglement]

13. Good post, sums it up very nicely

[spanone]

2. They are applying the KY Jelly as we speak.

[awoke_in_2003]

10. Nah,

they are not nice enough to use KY. This will be a prison rape.

[Warpy]

4. That price per barrel is going noplace but up, at least

in the short term. Unless the bottom drops out of the oil market, something that will take an extraordinary circumstance that none of us particularly wants, that will continue to be the trend.

I'd be quite surprised to see it drop below $55. I won't be surprised to see it top $75.

[annabanana]

6. $2.99 per gallon, regular... Long Island ,Exxon

Premium: $3.18

[Horse with no Name]

12. They raised it at the pump while I was pumping today

They did give it to me at the price it was when I started pumping though.
It is $2.79 here and it was $2.55 less than 2 weeks ago.