Why is gas going up again?

[kimmerspixelated]

a coupla weeks ago or three it was 1.49 around here, now it's up to 170 something. Hello? I thought oil was going down.. I probably missed something during the time my puter was down...

[stopbush]

1. NBC in LA said that prices would stabilize into the weekend and drop

on Mon or Tues.

[tridim]

2. I don't know, and I also want to know why a box of Wheat Thins is now $3.80.

Instead of the $2.50 they were last month.

[Canuckistanian]

3. OPEC is planning to cut production

I heard that a few weeks ago.

[Mugweed]

4. Irael's on-going war crime in Gaza?

Really, I know the area isn't exactly the oil capital of the region and anything happening there shouildn't affect the prices. But any excuse is a good excuse to oil barons who want desperately to raise the price and get that money train rolling again.

[John1956PA]

5. Maybe it's a coincidence, but the price of gold jumped about $40/oz today (nm)

[SoCalNative]

6. Because the oil hitting the market now

is the stuff that was going for $46-$50 a barrel a few weeks ago.

The prices will drop when that supply is depleted and the newer supplies that were below $40 a barrell start flowing. And they'll go up again when the supplies hit the market for the stuff that sold at over $46/barrell today.

[Ikonoklast]

7. Crude is getting priced up.

Yesterday's graph.


Closed at $46.47 today.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12400801/

[sutz12]

8. This one might actually be seasonal...

We're having one of the coldest winters in a while. Some oil is being diverted to heating fuel, I would imagine.

:shrug:

[happyslug]

9. The US AND Europe has has a very cold winter

When you have a cold Winter, people stock up and buy extra home heating oil. A by-product of making home heating oil is gasoline. Thus over the last two months we have had a surplus of Gasoline. With the surplus of gasoline the price continue to drop AFTER home heating oil (and Diesel, which is home heating oil but taxed differently) stabilized. This happened a few years ago, Diesel and Home Heating oil went up severely, when Europe had a bad winter, while Gasoline prices stayed about the same (This was during the slow increase in the price of oil from 2000 to this summer).

It is now the end of January, the makers of home heating oil are concentrating on Home heating oil for the next two months (till the beginning of March) and then switch their concentration to making gasoline. You must remember Gasoline and Diesel/Home Heating oil/Jet Fuel are by products of each other, but you can get more of one or the other out of each barrel of oil depending on the refining process. Now you can vary how much of each you get, but you will ALWAYS have both products, it is the nature of the refining process. Europe uses less gasoline then we do (They have a higher percentage of Diesel cars then we do AND just drive less do to having access to decent alternatives to driving). Thus Europe when it makes Home Heating oil have to get rid of the excess gasoline, and they dump it over here. The US is also having a sever winter, causing oil refiners to refine more oil into home heating oil but also producing more gasoline. This has been going on since about November (Winter came late in the US) but even in October people were buying Home Heating oil for the upcoming winter (And this producing more gasoline as the demand for gasoline dropped do to its high price in the Summer). The net effect is Gasoline prices dropped much more then Home Heating oil, and will go back up as the refiners switch from concentrating on home heating oil and concentrate on producing gasoline (Which will start in about March).

Thus Gasoline prices will go up starting in March as Demand for Gasoline increases as the weather gets nice. This happens EVERY YEAR, with prices peaking about labor day and dropping all summer long as production of Gasoline catches up with demand. THe price of Gasoline and Diesel should get closer together, either with a further drip in Diesel prices or an increase in Gasoline prices. I suspect the later for Europe will also be doing the switch and by May should NOT have excess gasoline to sell (Less supply, higher prices).

Please note the above ASSUMES everything is stable, i.e. no one stop selling oil or producing oil (Or increases production of oil greatly).

[onenote]

10. because now that the oil companies have helped get obama elected

by holding down prices, they are ready to jack them up again.

:sarcasm:

[damntexdem]

11. Because, as always, the oil companies are manipulating the prices.

And they don't even feel the need to try to relate it to anything going on in international oil markets.

Yet another issue for a Democratic president and Congress to address.

[Tesha]

12. 'Election's over. (NT)

[TheKentuckian]

22. WE HAVE A WINNER!

ding ding

[WilliamPitt]

13. Drastically reducing pre-election gas prices didn't help McCain...

...so why bother anymore.

:grr:

Just a theory.

[4 t 4]

14. because it can

the entire gas pricing industry is a complete farce. Opec is like the costa nostra

[customerserviceguy]

15. Tensions in the Middle East over Gaza, most likely

I saw today that gasoline futures are down. The price should decline again, soon. As far as I'm concerned anything below $2 a gallon should be considered relatively affordable.

I'm lucky, there's a Sunoco station on my way to work that still has a price of $1.539. Three weeks ago, it was $1.359.

[Posteritatis]

16. We like room temperature (nt)

[cherish44]

17. Well in my neck of the woods, we're just getting gouged...

Gas is $1.90 a gallon and has been there for about a month. We were 40 cents above the national average at one point. And no I'm not in a major city, I'm in Bumblefuck, Illinois and we are usually right at national average or lower.

[PeaceNikki]

18. It always trends down at the end of the year and back again at the beginning.

http://www.gasbuddy.com/gb_retail_price_chart.aspx?time=24

[safeinOhio]

19. I recall, at the $4.00/gal peak, it was

supply and demand. You know capitalism.
More like the price the market will bare.

Best way to screw em back is to keep driving less.

[L0oniX]

20. I am seeing a lot more SUV's and HV's and old heavy vans. Nice that when others conserve...

the idiots come out and go back to guzzling.

[NickB79]

27. Same here. My fiance and I both have seen a lot of big vehicles back on the road

Of course, we live in Minnesota, so they always come out with the first big snowfall, but we were noticing the trend before any snow even fell this past fall.

[spin]

21. Oil tankers are parked offshore...

HOUSTON — From the Indian Ocean to the South Atlantic to the Gulf of Mexico, giant supertankers brimming with oil are resting at anchor or slowly tracing racetrack patterns through the sea, heading nowhere.

The ships are marking time, serving as floating oil-storage tanks. The companies and countries leasing them for that purpose have made a simple calculation: the price of oil has fallen so far that it is due for a rise.

Some producing countries are trying to force that rise by using the tankers to withhold oil from the market, while traders are trying to profit by buying cheap oil now to store and sell at a higher price later. Oil storage has become so popular that onshore tank capacity is becoming scarce.

**********snip*************


National oil companies are hoping to reverse the price slide by holding oil off the market. Iran alone is reportedly using as many as 15 tankers to store crude oil in hopes that higher prices will prop up its economy, which is dependent on oil exports.

Private trading companies like Vitol and Phibro are storing oil in expectation of higher prices. They are taking their cues from markets where traders buy and sell contracts for future delivery of oil, which are signaling higher prices down the road.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/business/worldbusiness/15oil.html?ref=business

[4 t 4]

23. your all being reasonable

there is nothing reasonable about gas prices ie Supply and demand. It's just a bunch of Saudis around a table seeing what they can get away with. I am including myself-wake up.

[spin]

24. I'm not being reasonable, I'm pissed...

I don't appreciate attempts to curtail the supply of oil in order to drive the demand and therefore the price up. Such greed may well have precipitated to world wide recession we find ourselves in.

I just hope that this mess finally leads to our nation becoming energy independent and the development of green energy technology. We can sell this technology to the world.

Of course, the rich Saudis and other rich Arabs might just have to cut back on their lifestyles a bit.


Yacht belonging to Saudi Arabian Defense Minister, Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz.

[proud patriot]

25. we were at $1.60 something and now hovering around $2.00

SF Bay Area, Calif.

[lib2DaBone]

26. Commodity speculators back in the market...

..the ENRON crowd is back at work.

[Orsino]

28. Nachos.

My bad.